Review: Incredibles 2 Does What Marvel Couldn't
- Jun 17, 2018
- 3 min read
14 years on, The Incredibles is still praised as one of the greatest animated movies of all time, for combining extremely complex familial topics with a loving homage to the Golden Age of comics and a great action backdrop. The next chapter in the story of our favourite superhero family has arrived, and living up to its name, it's worth all of the hype it garnered.
After the Incredibles defeat the Underminer (John Ratzenberger) from the last movie, the amount of damage caused to the city draws criticism to supers once again, and draws the attention of Devtech CEO Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk). He proposes to Mr Incredible (Craig T Nelson), Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), and Frozone (Samuel L Jackson) that Elastigirl - being the least catastrophic of the three - should return to superheroics as a publicity stunt to highlight the benefits of legalising supers. As she begins her job and tracks down hypnotic new menace Screenslaver (Bill Wise), Mr Incredible tries to master the art of parenthood, and learns to control Jack-Jack's new powers.
The first film was simultaneously an homage, an insight into a man's broken dreams and fading marriage, a cool action movie, and a movie about family values. It worked on every level, but I thought it could never be replicated in a sequel. Thankfully, so did Pixar, who focussed more on making an action comedy with family themes, ditching the more mature elements without ditching the personality. And it works tremendously as both an action and a comedy.
The only other movie I can think of that has made me laugh as hard as Incredibles 2 is the recent Deadpool 2. Jack-Jack and Brad Bird's ever-brilliant Edna Mode are an absolute treat together on screen, and Craig T Nelson's performance as a stressed-out Mr Incredible almost brings more laughter than the actual situations.
But then the action is also spectacular. The star of the movie Elastigirl is utilised in numerous creative ways (although there are far too many Elastigirl parachutes in the movie) to build one of the more fascinating superheroes in cinema today. The two major action sequences leading up to Elastigirl's first fight with Screenslaver are "on-Parr" with the MCU's best, and the fight in question is an animator's fantasy. Then there are the newly introduced supers who become hypnotised, who are perfectly selected to combat the Incredibles, which leads to some brilliant action moments such as Dash running through endless portals.
The story and the pacing are pretty much perfect - despite very similar plot beats and plot points to the first, Incredibles 2 never feels like a retread. The story is just unpredictable enough to keep one's interest, and the (moderately predictable) reveal of Screenslaver's identity comes at a perfect time to keep viewers on their feet. And the comedy, the action, and the more serious plot points are well-balanced, which is more than I can say for most Marvel Studios movies.
I also felt that the characters each got a far better balance of screen time than in the first, but I'm once again fairly unsatisfied with the limited character development of Violet, and the lack of time across both movies dedicated to her exploring her powers.
Is Incredibles 2 a better movie than the first? No, since the first was a standalone masterpiece for 14 years which pulled off an impossible balancing act. But the action and the comedy in Incredibles 2 is certainly better, and it's amazing how well this sequel managed to recapture the imagination of children and adults alike so many years later. As a family movie, Incredibles 2 is a pretty funny one, but not one looking to tackle hard issues like the first. But as a popcorn flick, this may just be the best animated film of all time.
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