THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Pixar struck gold with The Incredibles as it matched the energy live action comic book films were bringing to the table. Since it won the Animated Feature Oscar, it was a matter of time for a sequel to come abound. And after 14 long years, it came.
PLOT
2018’s Incredibles 2 takes place immediately following the events of the first film. The superhero Parr family have just failed to stop the supervillain Underminer (John Ratzenberger) from destroying City Hall, robbing a bank and escaping. Because of this, the Superhero Relocation Program has been shut down the government, which now ends the financial assistance for supers like the Parrs. As the family resides at a motel for the time being, the teenage Violet shares with her dad Bob/Mister Incredible that her date Tony Rydinger (Michael Bird) saw her in costume but without her mask. He decides to tell agent Rick Dicker (Jonathan Banks) about it, which leads to him wiping out not just the memory of that incident, but every memory he had of her to the point he forgot having a date with her. By night, Bob and his wife Helen/Elastigirl rendezvous with their friend Lucius Best/Frozone in a meeting involving co-owners of the telecommunications company, DevTech, Winston & Evelyn Deavor. As the latter is a tech savvy genius, the former pitches with them to help him put supers back to being trusted by the public once again, by putting them in secret missions. He wants to start with Elastigirl off of the fact she has had the least amount of property damage compared to Mr. Incredible. Although Bob is jealous, he encourages his wife to take the job so that their kids can have the choice in whether or not they want to make a difference as adults the way they did. After the family relocates to a mansion owned by Winston himself, Helen embarks on the job with a new suit designed by Alexander Galbaki instead of Edna Mode. Bob has a hard time at parenthood because not only is Violet upset on what he intentionally did with Tony, he struggles to help his middle son Dash with mathematics, as well as discover his baby boy Jack-Jack has unlocked over a dozen powers. Of course, he doesn’t tell his struggles to his wife because he doesn’t want her to worry. With Jack-Jack being too difficult to restrain, Lucius insists getting help from Edna. Overnight, she makes a suit that can contain most of the powers, who in turn insists on being an exclusive designer for the family and Frozone. Helen’s mission to legalize supers becomes as eventful as her husband’s parental duties because she uncovers a new villain named ‘Screenslaver’ (Bill Wise) after preventing a hover train from crashing. It was almost possible due to the antagonist hijacking the screens an putting people in a hypnosis. The next time she encounters this individual’s technology involves her thwarting an assassination attempt on a senator. The second time was able to inspire younger supers to come out of hiding. She ends up meeting a few that include: Voyd (Sophia Bush) who can summon portals, Krusheur (Phil Lamarr) who can crush things with his mind, He-Lectrix (Lamarr as well) who summons electricity, Reflux (Paul Eiding) who vomits hot lava, Brick (Deirdre Warin) who has her own super strength, and Screech (Dee Bradley Baker) who has the physiology, flight & sonic screech of an owl. With Evelyn’s help, she is able to track down Screenslaver’s base and when she apprehends him, she unmasks him who turns out to be a disoriented guy. At a party where Winston announces hosting a summit to legalize supers again at a yacht of his own, the ‘Everjust’, Helen picks up on that the guy she caught was a victim as well since he was wearing hypnotic goggles. Just upon her deduction, Evelyn reveals herself to be the mastermind when restraining her and goggling her. She explains that she intends to keep supers illegal because she blames society’s over dependence on them that led to her father being killed by burglars just when supers were outlawed and he chose to go straight to a hotline rather than go straight to a safe room; His death led to his wife dying of grief. With her hypnosis goggles, she will have the supers outlawed for good by ruining their reputation at the summit. With Elastigirl in her control, she lures Mr. Incredible to hypnotized. Frozone gets sent by Bob in advance to protect the kids, but he gets intercepted by a squadron of hypnotized supers. The kids retreat with their dad’s “Incredi-bile”, but they choose to follow the yacht where their parents are. On the yacht, Frozone, Elastigirl & Mr. Incredible are forced to give villainous speeches in a live broadcast, subdue the ship’s crew and lock course to crash into New Urbem. As the kids sneak aboard, Jack-Jack is able to remove the goggles off of her mom, who in turn remove the others off of Bob & Frozone. As they save the other supers from Evelyn’s hypnosis, Helen explains what her plan is. All the supers are able to maneuver the Everjust into port while Elastigirl apprehends Evelyn and prevent her from escaping. With another disaster being prevented, the public respects supers again to the point where the summit makes supers legal just as Winston hoped. As Violet starts things over with Tony, the film ends with her joining her family in another adventure before returning to their reinstated movie date.
THOUGHTS
Since Hollywood loves making sequels, it’s crazy that they have a habit in making us wait more than a decade. By the time this one came out, the superhero genre was straight up dominant in every term of success whether it was popularity or making it big at the box office. Because of this, some would worry this wouldn’t fit in. Instead, we welcome back this animated world the way we always do with our past childhood favorites. And in return, we had another case of something where one would say ‘THAT WAS TOTALLY WICKED’. Writer/Director Brad Bird returns to the animation medium to make another epic that every generation would be satisfied to witness. I just knew it was gonna be good the second I heard a new epic score by Michael Giacchino. After 14 long years of course, the animation has its fair share of improvements as in the character and landscape designs, thus making everything about it feel sharper than before, this maintaining the vibe that it feels like seeing comic panels come to life. With that in mind, the following chases & battles are so satisfying to watch. My favorite being Elastigirl chasing the hover train with her own bike that can separate and still function as she stretches. And boy was I laughing my ass off when Jack-Jack was using his powers to fight a raccoon. While I don’t think this film is better than the first, I still dig it because it gives a whole other message that’s just as important as what we learned before: When you lead by example, take it all one step at a time because doing it all at once is bound to unleash a horde of mistakes that can be overwhelming to fix. And as you learn from your mistakes, you’ll know what to do right. This is the case that the returning characters go through as a lot happens in so little time, yet they are able to manage more than they imagined. The roles are reversed again with Helen & Bob because in this case, the former has to embrace her passion in a scenario where it can backfire and has to motivate herself knowing it won’t work. And as for the latter, he has to understand that in things like parenting, not every obstacle is accomplished overnight. Actors Holly Hunter & Craig T Nelson do a great job in expressing that although they’re dealing with challenges they’re not familiar with, they won’t give up no matter how challenging it would feel for them. And in the end, they get to have each other’s back when the dire is needed. Frozen ain’t even involved that much like before, but Samuel L Jackson reminds us he’s still a reliable friend when it comes to evening the playing field against enemies, as in protecting the kids as much as he could. Violet may still be a teen, but Sarah Vowell gave an appropriate amount of growth you’d expect for someone at that age. She has an accurate feeling of annoyance with things not going her way, as in having a date mishap and understanding that it takes time to make the changes you want. Overtime though, she’s able to accept life ain’t gonna go the way she pleases, hence being motivated to save her parents when she could’ve hid. Huckleberry Milner fills in the shoes of Dash left behind by Spencer Fox very well in matching his enthusiasm. He doesn’t have an arc like the rest of his family, but he fills in the gap in wanting to live everyday to the fullest when he’s not griping with math and the need to eat vegetables. I just knew this movie wouldn’t work if Brad wasn’t voicing Edna again and thank god because that character maintains the pace so well. She is still a standout for being sassy when her friends don’t reach out to her for expressing her talent. But when that offer comes up, she’ll work like her life depended on it. And the end result for Jack-Jack’s suit proves the case. Going into new characters, we have a dynamic duo who definitely had a broad of different opinions that created opposing personalities that were the Deavor siblings. Bob Odenkirk expresses Winston as a natural confident guy in wanting to return the respect that supers deserve. Despite the mistake that led to tragedy, he doesn't hold it against people that weren't at fault and that motivates him to bring back a return to form so that no one else can go through the same as him. Catherine Keener shows Evelyn as one who deceives us into thinking she's laid back yet eager in making a difference like her brother, but uses her heartbreak as an excuse to take it out on the wrong people. The world was cruel to her, so she chooses to be the same in return which backfires. I was in relief Winston went against her once he found out because he knew her actions weren't gonna change what happened to them. Some want to assume he has other plans in mind since he is a businessman, but at this point, he doesn't have anything else to gain after the returning public praise goes in motion for the supers. So I doubt he'll be a villain by the time the third film comes out. But because Evelyn is a reminder that not everyone feels the same about them, you can only expect that the good will always find a way to overcome bad. This movie lived up to the hype, but good stuff like this had some head scratching moment upon re-watch. For example, Violet gets suspicious about Helen wearing her Elastigirl boots, but doesn’t notice Bob’s older suit that is completely visible by the collar of his trench coat? She put her hair back, so she ain’t blind this time. I also think there is a big loophole in the death of Mr Deavor because he could’ve hooked up his super phones in the safe room so that no burglar would even get to them. I gotta point it out because having those next to the stairs is asking to get held at gunpoint. And ain’t it crazy there ain’t any pedestrians snitching on Helen when she’s being an illegal active super before saving the hover train, let alone give a passing glance. I mean I don’t want Elastigirl to get snitched on, but talk about minding your business being taken too far. I’m sure this was the point, but it was way too creepy for a kid to show off a sign to Elastigirl that “Screenslaver is still out there” when it doesn’t seem like she was hypnotized. I’m surprised not a single adult even acknowledged it. I then gotta ask if it’s even possible to avoid hypnosis from the goggles by closing eyes? If Helen did that, she would’ve bought herself time to escape sooner. I mean that’s more surprising than the fact Frozone’s eye protection doesn’t block the goggles either. I can even admit it was cool for the Incredi-bile to have a boat mode, but it would’ve not been a idea if Dash ran on water like he did in the first movie. Boat mode is useful for sure, but it’s kinda pointless much like Helen swapping to autopilot for a plane that still crashes. Ignore this, then you’ll appreciate everything else that this movie is all about. In short, Incredibles 2 is a great sequel for reaching the expectations that make it all around entertaining of an adventure, thus earning its billion dollar success as well as the Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature. If you love the first film so much, stop waiting and see this now.
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