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حالة الطقس      أسواق عالمية

Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Film myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Who can know the mind of Bob Iger? Last November, the Disney CEO publicly questioned the studio’s fondness for sequels; it had, he said, simply “made too many”. By this February, the message had been tweaked. “I’d say we’re leaning a little bit more into sequels,” Iger announced, as if an underling had just slipped a release schedule under his nose. So we come to Inside Out 2: a follow-up to the 2015 Pixar charmer that took the audience into the psyche of Riley, the ice-hockey-mad girl who turned 12 over the course of the original film.The new movie briskly recaps the cute high concept that made the first a hit. Riley remains governed by a C-suite of emotions, rendered as loveable animated doodads: droopy blue Sadness, lobster-red Anger and so on, led by the endlessly chipper Joy, voiced again by Amy Poehler. Not much appears to have changed. Indeed, since 2015, Riley has only made it from 12 to 13. Of course, that small step in time is a giant lurch developmentally. A loud alarm duly goes off in cognitive HQ. Puberty, reads the button, at which the critics around me chuckled. (Take that for a guarantee of box office success.) Ahead of summer hockey camp, Riley wakes next morning with a single spot on her chin. In her head, though, a hostile takeover is under way, our heroes sidelined by a fresh crew of emotions better suited to teen life. Embarrassment looms; Ennui wafts; Joy is brushed aside by Anxiety, bright orange with chattering teeth and caffeinated eyes. Like me, you may feel torn about the mildly villainous Anxiety. Tiger parents will note the new regime certainly helps Riley get things done. And nerves have clearly played a part behind the scenes as well. For director Kelsey Mann, the project might have had the feel of a jittery school project; a long-term member of the Pixar creative team, this is his first outing as director. But the prevailing mood is tried and tested. The script dusts off the old Toy Story theme of what it is to be a childish thing outgrown. Visually, the mental landscape is pretty — memories look like glassy Christmas tree baubles — it’s but carried over whole from the first movie.Yet there are also witty flights of fancy you’d swear Mann must have had actual fun making. Even a curmudgeon would smile at scenes in which the casually dazzling animation is spliced with characters from creaky old video games. But the movie always stiffens up again, aware of the Disney grown-ups nearby. And, like the first film, the sequel is torn between knowing cleverness and not wanting to do anything too weird. Is there really an essential self, it asks, before rowing back into a pep talk: Make good choices!Of course there are worse things you can tell a child — or an adult. And beyond Iger personally, you feel the real target audience here is less young kids than their parents. (Seriously: ennui?) That may be one reason this version of teenage angst is so sweetly cosy; it’s a deeply reassuring portrait of modern American life. For Pixar, though, candour could be useful. Think of all the sequels that could be made as Riley keeps on ageing. If a 13-year-old has mixed emotions, just wait for adulthood.★★★☆☆In cinemas from June 14

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