Given the decade-plus of anticipation that preceded it, Brad Bird’s Incredibles 2 had not only sky-high expectations, but a massive potential for let-down. 2004’s The Incredibles remains one of Pixar’s great achievements, a rousing action-adventure that was also hysterically funny that was also bitingly satirical in a way that Pixar films had never been (and haven’t been since, Wall-E excepted) that was also a touching exploration of the roles people play in families and in society at large. All that, bundled up in tights (no capes).
More often than not, Incredibles 2 defies expectations by being every bit as rousing, funny, biting, and touching as the original film. The generation of advancement in computer animation also gives the retro-future world inhabited by Bob (Craig T. Nelson) and Helen (Holly Hunter) Parr and their family and friends a breathtakingly lush color palette and depth unlike any from Pixar previously. Incredibles 2 actually looks the way you remember the classic Pixar films looking, before rewatches reveal the limitations of their respective era.
If Incredibles 2 has a weak spot, it’s that Bird sometimes seems to be in such a dash (natch) to stuff his sequel with every new idea he had in the intervening 14 years that few of those new characters and ideas, or many of the returning ones, get the needed room to breathe. At just short of two full hours, Incredibles 2 is the longest computer animated film ever made, yet it still feels breathless at times, like a nervous kid in front of a classroom speed-reading their book report in order to make sure they get everything out before the bell rings.
Incredibles 2 picks up immediately where its predecessor left off, with Mr. Incredible (Nelson), Elastigirl (Hunter), and their kids Violet (Sarah Vowell) and Dash (Huckleberry Milner, replacing Spencer Fox) leaping into action against the villainous Under-Miner (a delightful cameo by John Ratzenberger). Despite their best efforts, the Underminer escapes and the Parr family is left holding the bag for all the collateral damage the battle caused. But all is not lost for the outlawed superheroes: Bob and Helen, along with good buddy Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson, continuing to have the time of his life), are approached by billionaire siblings Winston (Bob Odenkirk) and Evelyn (Catherine Keener). Winston hero-worships superheroes and has a plan to use Evelyn’s gifts for technology to turn public opinion on caped (or not) crusaders and repeal the law that keeps supers in hiding.
One catch: Bob’s whole “smash, punch, smash some more” approach isn’t good PR. Elastigirl is the more telegenic, likable play, which means that Helen is sent out to battle bad guys in front of an adoring public, while Bob is left at home to try and help Dash with school, coach Violet through boy troubles, and deal with baby Jack-Jack’s sudden onslaught of superpowers.
It’s in this long middle section that Incredibles 2 really shines, adopting an episodic structure that bounces from character to character, from action to gags and back and forth, with ease. The improvements in animation allow Bird to go whole-hog on the superhero action, including a sequence where Elastigirl rescues a bullet-train from certain doom that utilizes her stretching powers with such a level of invention and fun that you want to strap every person ever involved with a Fantastic Four movie down, Clockwork Orange-style, and scream, “LIKE THAT. YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE IT LIKE THAT.” The film introduces more and more supers as it goes, and all represent an invitation for Bird and the brilliant animators at Pixar to play, whether it’s one character’s knack for portal teleportation or another’s flame-vomiting ability.
But if the action is terrific, it’s the home front with Bob and the kids where Incredibles 2 gets to be really special. Jack-Jack’s seemingly limitless abilities are the comic gift that keep on giving, from a deliriously wacky battle with a raccoon that belongs alongside the great mini-masterpieces of cartoon destruction crafted by Tex Avery and Chuck Jones to a late-in-the-film visit to see Edna Mode (once again voiced by Bird himself) that is every bit as giddy fun as her appearance in the first film.
As with the first film, Bird uses the notion of a sidelined superhero as a potent metaphor for an aging man struggling with his place in the world. Jack-Jack’s powers may be supernatural, but Bob’s dead-eyed stares after being forced up late for nights on end by an unruly child will be familiar to every parent, as will his troubles helping Dash with “new math” or trying to make sense of Violet’s boy troubles. And Bird’s script is always careful to lace the silly with the sincere, making these outsized cartoon characters eminently human and relatable in a way that flesh-and-blood characters often aren’t in movies these days.
If Incredibles 2 had opted to be nothing more than a “22 Short Films about Springfield (with superheroes)” style romp that bounced easily from vignette to vignette, I would have been a perfectly happy camper. But there is a larger plot at foot, involving a new supervillain known as The Screenslaver, who has a bone to pick with Elastigirl, and that’s unfortunately where the film stumbles a tad.
It’s tough to explain why Screenslaver feels like a let down without getting into spoilers, but suffice to say that Bird utilizes a way-too-common narrative trick that Disney and Pixar have completely exhausted of late, and the result not only leaves a hole where the center of the film should be, but ends up fracturing the ensemble in a way that makes the film feel unbalanced. And whereas Syndrome’s motivations and methods in the first film have inspired years of thought and debate (“If everyone is super, no one will be”), Screenslaver just isn’t all that interesting, and the movie just isn’t all that interested in spending more time on that character which, again, leaves a hole in the center of the story.
To be clear: This is a minor quibble in what is otherwise a terrific film, front-to-back. And for whatever my qualms with Screenslaver’s overall villainy, it sets things up nicely for a final stretch that is equal parts knock-out superhero brawl and slamming-door classical farce. Pixar movies of late seem driven to one-up one another in tragedy and tear count, but Incredibles 2 is happy to make you happy, piling on the laughs and cheer-worthy action with aplomb.
The film looks absolutely gorgeous on Blu, accentuating all the glorious colors and designs of Bird’s imagined world. You feel like you could get lost down a million different corners in the super-friendly city, the animation team bringing incredible (natch) textures and depth to the exaggerated places and people. And the Blu-ray also comes with a couple shorts to go along with the film, including the exceedingly lovely Bao and the charming Auntie Edna.
The Incredibles is beloved enough that presumably any sequel or spin-off with that name associated would have rolled in ample amounts of money. Hats off to Brad Bird, his cast, and the entire army of animators who instead worked like hell to make something with ambitions beyond just checking off sequel boxes.
Incredibles 2 maybe doesn’t hang together as well as the original film, but it’s stuffed to the gills with greatness and that’s nothing to frown at.