Incredibles 2 2018
The original Incredibles is one of my favorite Pixar movies, a great amalgam of spy and superhero movie with all kinds of classic elements from cop movies like the buddy and getting his badge taken away. It also had some great family and mid-life crisis stuff thrown in. There are some similar elements here, but the focus is a little different, more on the family (now that they are all supers) with a stay-at-home Dad and working Mom. Frozone has a bigger part in the action sequences, but it would be good to get to know him better, especially his home life. Also the baby, Jack-Jack, figures prominently in this movie, given maybe too many different powers even though he is a baby so they aren’t usually focused (those powers are presented here like they are new, but many of them were already known from the Blu-ray extra feature Jack-Jack Attack). Then there is a new group of superheroes with different powers (who feel a lot like the cast of a TV series spinoff) and honestly it is a little too much. Unfortunately, with so many superheroes in a movie, the inevitable result is scenes of superheroes fighting other superheroes, which doesn’t ever go that well in any movie. There ends up being quite a bit of action but it does seem like it takes a while to get into the meat of the story which you see coming pretty early. It is still fun seeing these characters again and seeing how the family bonds through adversity, but the main story isn’t that great. Seeing this on its very big opening weekend, it was fun to hear what kids were laughing at (mostly Jack-Jack) and the audience gave a couple of big rounds of applause.
Incredibles 2 is probably worth watching and could possibly grow on me, but I was a little disappointed. It seems like some of the critics I usually follow were dismissive, but the movie is getting an 80 on Metacritic, maybe indicating a lot of other critics give the movie a little more credit than it deserves (movies for kids tend to get overly positive reviews on Metacritic).The opening animated short, Bao was pretty weird and the animation style odd enough that I didn’t realize that the main character was a woman, which is pretty critical to the story. The style reminded me a little of the short, Inner Workings, that accompanied Moana and which I thought was uncomfortably weird. The story itself was ultimately kind of sweet; I just didn’t like the presentation.
Written: 16 Jun 2018
Owned on: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital