2018 | rated PG | Animated | written and directed by Brad Bird | 1hr 58mins |
Studio Pitch: You better make another Incredibles or Disney will make a shoddy direct-to-video sequel that tarnishes the name.
Picking a favorite Pixar movie among several great movies would be tough. If I had a gun to my head I’d probably land on The Incredibles. If you asked my favorite superhero movie, amid the Marvel and DC mania where a new big budget superhero movie is released every other week, my favorite would still be Brad Bird’s The Incredibles. It’s a unique movie even in the Pixar catalog where masterful storytelling is a feat they make look easy. I’m inclined to drop Incredibles 2 in the same deep chamber movie analysis, which this movie clearly doesn’t invite. Incredibles 2 is the latest in the round of sequels Disney has demanded of Pixar under threat of taking the licenses and making their own less-than direct to video sequels to milk the franchise for more cash. Pixar has been circumventing that with their own films since Toy Story 3. I’d rather see more original films like Coco and less sequels, but Pixar is just too damn good at these, using the opportunities to delve deeper into their worlds. Usually.
Incredibles 2, like the first film, is less a Pixar movie than it is a Brad Bird movie. Intricately animated, full of clever dialog and contemporary satire above the head’s of most children’s films, a genuinely scary villain and a few guns and swear words dropped in here and there. And thank God it’s animated, giving the film the luxury of picking up right where the last movie left off in 2004 with the emerging threat of The Underminer, instead of the movie forced to work the advanced age of actors into the plot.
But instead of a fresh new adventure we get, well, more of the same. With the Parr Family – Bob, Helen, Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack – still hiding their super powers in a world where Supers are still illegal, a wealthy benefactor gives one of them an opportunity to bring Supers out of the shadows and back into the light. In the first film that was Bob/Mr. Incredible (voiced by Craig T. Helson), in this film it’s Helen/Elasta-Girl (Holly Hunter), deemed less of an insurance risk (and frankly with cooler powers for Bird to play with more). The benefactors are the Deavor siblings (Bob Odenkirk and Catherine Keener) and if you’ve seen any movie ever, or just Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom a week ago, you’d be suspicious of their motives.
There is a sameness and a predictability that hangs over this movie and curbed my enjoyment. With the clever world building and surprises burned through in the first film, Incredibles 2 is in recycle mode. But I do love this world. Bird sticks with his production design aesthetic so Incredibles 2 still looks and sounds like a 60s spy movie. No matter the medium, Bird is a terrific action director. Within the familiar story, he constructs a handful of dynamite action scenes – one involving a speeding hover train and another a squad of helicopters – that are complex and fluid, more in the vein of an Indiana Jones environmental set piece than the contemporary action trend of bland shoot-outs and big battles. I still contend that Bird’s Robot/House fight scene in Tomorrowland is a criminally underrated piece of action. Even when the final reveal, and frankly most of the third act of the film, lacks imagination, the mysterious Screenslaver is a creepy and effective villain that kept as an omnipresent threat that can control anyone and obsesses Elasta-Girl.
Elsewhere the film plays catch-up with Bob trying to wrangle Jack-Jack’s new powers and adjusting to his new domestic role. Cue the long, tired thread about dad learning how hard it really is to raise kids – waka waka. Where the first film cleverly alluded to a lawsuit happy society, threats of terrorism and the conformity of socialist equality where nobody is special when everyone is special, Incredibles 2 reels itself away from any pointed commentary. This movie taps onto a lot of things. It puts bodycams on superheroes, Bob struggles with Common Core New Math and Helen struggles with breaking the law to right her illegal status as if the movie is circling around immigration, but Bird is hazy about his intentions.
Most interestingly, Bird isn’t interested in making a single comment about the superhero mania that sprung up since the first Incredibles pre-dated all of it and it swaps out it’s main character to the Parr matriarch without making a big deal about female empowerment that is so trendy. Bird just wants to make another spy-homage adventure with the Parrs – and I’m totally ok with that when it’s done this well. Incredibles 2 is disappointingly simple and familiar, but Bird can’t help but make this work within the lines. He knows these characters too well and puts too much care into the action scenes. It’s still a visually rich, thrilling and wildly entertaining movie, but it doesn’t further explore the concept in a fertile way I would expect from Pixar. Let’s hope this marks a soft retirement for the Parrs.
4