Orbi-Wan Techno

From my review page, ORBI-WAN GOES TO THE MOVIES:

The Incredibles 2 (PG) - Fourteen years later, the superheroes we love are back, and they haven’t aged a day

Personal note: Sorry for the delay in this review. The Orbi-Wan household welcomed a rescue dog into our house recently, the end of the school year dominated all last week, and our attention has been a bit divided.

Fourteen years ago, The Incredibles burst into our collective consciousnesses, courtesy of Pixar and director Brad Bird (The Iron Giant). In theater years before Iron Man, The Incredibles told the story of a time (late 50’s/early 60’s by design) when superheroes had fallen out of favor and gone into hiding. The focus was the Parrs, Bob (Craig Nelson) and Helen (Holly Hunter), and their three kids, Violet, Dash and toddler Jack-Jack. The family faced a lot of challenges, defeated the bad guy, and at the end of the movie, prepared to face the threat of the subterranean villain, The Underminer.

The original Incredibles was a smashing success, considered one of the best, most original of the Pixar library. In this age of sequelitis, it’s surprising that it has taken almost a decade and a half for The Incredibles to return to the big screen.

Well, now they’re back. Opening last weekend and destroying records for an animated film right and left, The Incredibles 2 literally picks up in a continuation of the final scenes of the first film, as the family suits up to face the Underminer, who begins burrowing under the city’s banks to rob them. The Parrs spring into action (with the help of fan favorite Frozone, again voiced by Samuel L. Jackson), Unfortunately, the Underminer gets away, a large portion of the city is destroyed, and the Parrs are briefly arrested.

The Superhero Relocation program is defunded, and the Parrs find themselves living in a cheap hotel, until they are approached by brother and sister tech moguls Winston and Evelyn Deavor (Bob Odenkirk and Catherine Keener). These two have a plan to use Elastigirl as the face of a new campaign to change public opinion of supers, and get the anti-superheroes laws reversed. This chaffs Mr. Incredible, as it means Bob will now have to care for the kids and keep the household running while Helen is out being a superhero. On top of that, Violet is having an adolescent crisis concerning a boy, and Jack-Jack has begun to manifest an endless array of abilities.

The Incredibles 2 is a fun, bouncy, sometimes thrilling, sometimes ho-hum follow-up to the original classic. The sequel hits all the familiar beats that we want to see, but sometimes it beats a few of them a few too many times. However, there are a lot more positives, like Jack-Jack’s epic battle with a raccoon, the entire bit with “Auntie” Edna Mode (again voiced by Brad Bird), and the introduction of a whole slew of new supers who are inspired to come out of hiding because of Elastigirl’s influence. I was a little surprised to see that the climax of the film was influenced, at least in part, by that not-so-great sequel Speed 2… Maybe I’m the only one who thought of that.

The Incredibles 2 was a bunch of fun that felt just a tad redundant in parts, but not enough to keep it from being a great Pixar addition. I’m giving The Incredibles a solid 4 out of 5 lightsabers (the original Incredibles is one of the rare 5 lightsabers).

NOTES TO PARENTS: MILD SPOILERS AHEAD - The Incredibles 2 is rated PG for the expected superhero action and associated mayhem that comes with it. Surprisingly, a character says “hell” and “I’ll be damned”, a rarity in a Pixar/Disney animated family film. Some scenes with the bad guy, Screen Slaver, are a bit intense for little ones, and there is one brilliantly animated scene that contains rapidly flashing lights in the background and intense imagery.

MID- AND AFTER-CREDIT SCENES: There are NO mid-credit scene or after-credit scenes, but there are really cool versions of superhero themes for Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl and Frozone over the credits.

THERE IS A PRE-SHOW CARTOON before Incredibles 2 called Bao, a sweet little tearjerker about a woman raising a Chinese dumpling as a son. Just go with it. It’s beautiful.

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fujishig

Loved the movie, bit just came in here to say Bao was pretty disturbing... cute but disturbing, which may be a first for me.

tonyc3742

Yeah we were the same way with Bao. What the whaaaat? Oh..i get it... I think....Cute UNTIL....

Anyway - saw it yesterday. Theatre wasn't totally packed but was pretty darn full.

Liked it a lot in general but it didn't seem to have the novelty or panache or something of the first. I'm always a fan of more heroes so they were cool to see, and of course the film works on a bunch of levels of social commentary without being too heavyhanded.

Really good, though not as good as the original (duh). But had some things I liked better.

fujishig

The one thing the concept of this film (and partially the previous one) is that it's kind of true that the world marched on fine without superheroes. In fact, the major dangers that we see to the world are basically someone who grew up idolizing superheroes wanting to bring them back with himself in the forefront, and letting others have superpowers, and someone who grew up hating superheroes and wanting to humiliate them. In between we have a threat like the Underminer but the movie goes out of it's way to say how insurance or whatever would handle them and the superheroes just put more people in danger.

That's always been the conundrum of a world with superheroes: if they went away, would the wacky villains that attack them also go away? And the answer here seems to be, yes.

Jon2

There's no conundrum. There's no reason to think villains would go away just because superheroes disappeared.

Saying wacky villains would go away if superheroes disappeared is like saying crime would decrease if there were fewer cops.

Besides, supers would probably be covered by "good samaritan laws".

fujishig

But we don't see that happening in this world. The Superheroes all got told to stay home and the supervillains didn't take over (and if they tried you'd think that the super heroes would have come out of hiding before, but it didn't happen). So many super villains in comics have backstories that are tied to a hero or motivation because of what a hero did or didn't do, so it's a chicken and the egg scenario, but even in something like Batman's backstory, the crazy dressed up super villains didn't come out of the woodworks until Batman started his war on crime dressed in his PJs (let's ignore Gotham for a sec). Sure crime wouldn't stop, though.

DJariya

Saw a matinee today and it was pretty awesome. Loved seeing the family back together and Jack-Jack was hilarious.

The Bao short film was cute, but yeah it was a little disturbing. I'm interpreting the whole sequence with the little Bao was all a figment of her imagination. Obviously she was sad about her son leaving and moving away and brought that into making up the Bao fantasy and re-raising a child again. She was probably aiming to probably do it better, but ultimately failed.

Jon2

We didn't see it happen because the filmmakers didn't show it. Doesn't mean it wasn't happening... within the context of the Incredibles universe.

You have to figure something was going on with super villains because of the insurance issue. Why would banks have insurance for super villain robbery damage if super villains aren't still doing their thing? Clearly, super villains were an issue in this world, it's just that the authorities didn't want supers heroes dealing with them. They didn't care for any public political fallout and found it easier to just let villains have their way.

Philosophically, Mr Incredible is correct about social/political attitudes in their world. It's the kind of stuff Kurt Vonnegut often wrote about.

Mabuse

Well I just got back and boy was I right. This was a remake that just followed the story beats of the first movie. It wasn’t “bad”, I laughed and was entertained, but this was a major missed opportunity.

It did a full Ghostbusters 2 at the beginning too, where we’re expected to believe that despite publicly saving the day we discover the heroes are meligned by society once more, despite all logical expectations. That undermines the original film in both sequels, and I don’t appreciate that.

tanman

I thought this was an interesting take on the lawsuit aspect of the first film.

Hokeyboy

Disagree. The movie started literally right after the first film ended. Ghostbusters 2 was FIVE YEARS LATER. The events of the first Incredibles hadn't even sunken in yet.

Although I agree with much of your assessment of the film as a whole. Fun? Sure. Entertaining? Without question. But it's a shadow of the original.

TGM

Just saw it with the kids... thoroughly enjoyed it.

enjoyed looking at Elastigirl's ass for 2 hours too.