Film Review: Incredibles 2 ***
They’re back! The Pixar sequel that we actually wanted has finally arrived and Brad Bird has done it again. If it doesn’t contain quite the same magic as the first time, it is because of its own ambitions being so large. With the magic of animation, although it has been fourteen-years since the first movie debuted, no time has passed for the Parr family who jumped into action to try and stop the Underminer, a villain of potential who like Bomb-voyage in the first film leaves with no development except to set the movie in motion. And in motion, the film stays.
Brad Bird’s action sequences are some of the best in cinema. Whether animating them like here or by hand in The Iron Giant or in live action, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Brad Bird has a keen sense of space and movement within a film to make sure we always understand the action, even when trapped in a box with bright and disorienting light and jump cuts. It’s impressive.
The action portion of the story this time is given to Helen Parr, aka Elastigirl, who, unlike her eager husband, reluctantly agrees to become the face of superheroes to try and overturn a law outlawing their existence. Helen is more than up to the challenge, but the joy is watching her receive a spotlight that has always fallen on her husband; she enjoys being a hero again. And while that portion of the storyline, with another tragically underdeveloped villain, is good, Incredibles II would not be the movie it is without the Bob Parr storyline.
Bob does not understand that parents are the true superheroes and that learning to juggle three children’s needs taxes parents, with mothers often not complaining as they typically take the burden and brunt of that work. Bob, aka Mr. Incredible, is used to things coming easy to him. He has powers to make him strong, but he discovers he needs a different type of strength to be a father. The best scenes in the entire movie happen between him and Violet as he tries to deal with her adolescence and crush on a boy.
However, and every fan knew this was coming, the star of this movie is Jack-Jack. Too often the film in the Elastigirl scenes are simply moving the plot along. The strength of The Incredibles as a series is the family dynamic and development of them as characters. Dash suffers from the time constraint more than any other character, but Jack-Jack soars! After Bob is destroyed by another sleepless night trying to put Jack-Jack down, Jack-Jack sees a racoon raiding their trashcan outside and decides that its time for him to be the good guy and get the bad guy. The result is a “pointless” scene in terms of plot, but one whose joy and humor are the best in the film.
Ultimately, if you can’t read between the lines, Incredibles II fails to somewhat deliver on the promise of its premise. The Elastigirl story line is superfluous and should not be the focus of the movie. I think Brad Bird lets off his heroes too easily. I wanted to see Bob struggling more as being a parent and perhaps even doing some things as missing picking up a child, or having to find a home or do housework, etc. These small moments would have opened up the story to truly explore the Parrs. But, even with that being said, this is one of the best Pixar sequels; it’s just no Toy Story 2 or Toy Story 3.
