written and directed by Brad Bird
When Pixar released The Incredibles back in 2004, it knocked my socks off. Having grown up with Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four, the original squabbling family of superheroes, I found much to love about these charming but wildly dysfunctional new animated heroes, Silver Age superheroes who'd been forced into retirement by a disillusioned populace and who found themselves grappling with middle age and suburban ennui. At a time when the superhero fare in cinemas was limited mainly to Sam Raimi's Spider-man and Bryan Singer's X-Men films, the original Incredibles provided a refreshing take on the genre that endeared it to both critics and audiences, including this particular viewer.
The Incredibles 2 arrives in a somewhat more heavily-populated cinematic superhero landscape, and while Brad Bird and Pixar still manage to deliver a quality film, one which, from a technical perspective, is leaps and bounds above its predecessor, it doesn't have quite the same impact.
The film picks up directly where the first one left off, with Bob Parr, aka Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) his wife Helen, aka Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), their super-powered kids Violet (Sarah Vowell) and Dash (Huck Milner) and their old friend Lucius aka Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) taking on the menace of the Underminer (John Ratzenberger). While the assembled superheroes save City Hall from destruction, the chaos wrought by the Underminer (who has escaped with a bank vault full of money), coupled with the fact that superheroes in general are still illegal, causes them headaches as they are detained by the police, who let them off with a warning. The Parrs are at the end of their rope; not only was their house destroyed at the end of the last movie, but they soon learn from their old government liaison Rick Dicker (Jonathan Banks) that the government has shut down the program for keeping superheroes underground, meaning that they need to find work soon or they'll be out on the streets.
Fortunately, Lucius approaches Bob and Helen, having been contacted by the affluent Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk) a wealthy telecommunications magnate and fan of superheroes whose father adored them and supported them back when they were legal, and who wants more than anything to make that happen. His grand scheme, which he plans to implement with his tech-genius sister Evelyn (Catherine Keener) is simple: to put people right in the seat of what superheroes do by implanting cameras into their suits, so that they can see how hard they work to save lives. Deavor chooses Elastigirl to spearhead the program, as she has, in her career, been the least destructive of the three superheroes. This puts Bob, to his initial annoyance, on stay-at-home dad duty with Dash, Violet and their infant Jack-Jack who is about to manifest a whole host of his own superpowers.
No sooner does Helen get back into action, however, than a new threat, the mysterious Screenslaver, emerges.
From start to finish, the movie is a joy to behold. Having just re-watched the original film on DVD before taking my family to see this, I was struck by how much the technology has advanced since then. Helen has considerably softer and warmer features than her more plastic-looking previous incarnation, while Bob's hilarious transformation from superhero to sleep-deprived superdad is vividly depicted with eyebags and five o' clock shadow. The movie does a bit of gender-swapping from the last one, with Helen flexing muscles doing the superheroics, while Bob handles the challenge of looking after three kids, who consist of a lovelorn teenager, a tweener struggling with his math lessons, and a baby, who'd be challenging enough without the superpowers. In that sense, the film does feel a bit familiar after awhile. Fortunately, the antics of the multi-powered Jack-Jack infuse a bit of welcome freshness into the film, especially as the terrified Bob tries to figure out how to handle his tiny little powerhouse.
If there was any particular letdown about this film, it had to be the villain, who, upon scrutiny, is surprisingly similar in motivation and, to some degree, in method, to Jason Lee's Syndrome from the first film. I appreciate that Bird gives the bad guys nuance and a driving force beyond just the desire to rule the world or enrich one's self, but there was too much similarity between this and what came before to ignore.
I was also overjoyed to hear Michael Giacchino's familiar brassy, retro-jazzy tunes once more. He's come full circle; after kicking off his film career with the first Incredibles movie, he's since gone on to write music for not only movies from Pixar and mother company Disney but also giant film franchises like Mission Impossible, Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel and Jurassic Park. More than just rehash his original themes, though Giacchino infuses this score with just about every trick he's picked up since the first film. It's not unlike hearing how much richer Alan Silvestri's Avengers: Infinity War score was than his original Avengers music.
As satisfying as I found the film to be, though, I really couldn't shake how familiar everything felt. Everything looked and sounded great, to be sure, but really, it's was like a shiny coat of paint on basically the same car. Don't get me wrong; I am a huge fan of sequels that basically lean on formula, like the Marvel films and even the Jason Bourne series, but considering the narrative triumph of the first film, I had somewhat high expectations of a sequel fourteen years in the making. Perhaps too high, it seems.
The good news is, it's still a rip-roaring good time at the movies. It looks to be a smash hit, too, so I know I'll be back for the almost inevitable sequel.
I just hope it doesn't take another fourteen years for them to make one, and that they try for something a little different next time.
8/10
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