I HATE sequels!
That being said, “Incredibles 2” is clearly the best animated superhero movie of 2018 and I am one of its detractors.
Here is the official synopsis: “Bob Parr (Mr. Incredible) is left to care for Jack-Jack while Helen (Elastigirl) is out saving the world.”
Yes, that’s it!
Let’s all step back for a moment and take a really good look at the Parr family.
You have Bob Parr/Mr. Incredible with his super girth and super strength (Craig T. Nelson); Helen Parr/Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) with super stretching abilities; their oldest Violet (Sarah Vowell) who can turn invisible; Dashiell (Dash) (Huck Milner) with super speed and Baby Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile) a shape shifter who can also shoot laser beams from his eyes.
This continuation begins mere seconds after the conclusion of the original “Incredibles” of 14 years ago when “Dash” won his first track meet; the 15-year-old Violet made plans to see her (potential) boyfriend later that week.
The family is heading home when seconds later … disaster strikes.
It’s the Underminer!
Hold it right there, buster!
Here’s my first beef with this Pixar cartoon/film: No “time jump”!
Why aren’t we fast forwarding to 14 years instead to see Violet at 30 with her own set of family issues? Or Dash as a science teacher by day and preserving his super speed for some daring deeds?
Or Jack-Jack in high school?
Instead, writer/director Brad Bird just keeps the film going as the Parr family stumbles a bit but easily defeats the Underminer only to be seduced, along with the “iceman” Lucius Best/Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) by huckster Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk) who wants to build a massive PR campaign around the return of superheroes to the world, starting with Elastigirl.
Actually what Deavor really wants is to put Elastigirl under his—wink, wink—control and purposely is separating her from the rest of the super-powered family members, leaving “Mr. Incredible” alone to manage the kids.
Hold it right there, buster (again)!
Which brings my second beef (hold the onions) with “Incredibles 2”: the complete ineptitude of the family father to manage three little kids—albeit, super-powered ones.
I am writing this review at 5:42 a.m. and in less than 15 minutes, my three super mutants (the twins, Nicholas and Antoinette are nearly five and Baby Jeff Jr, age two) will be up and running. Our own “Elastigirl,” the ever lovely Mrs. Cris Evert Ruffolo is off on a world-beating assignment far to the south of metro Cebu, which leaves this likewise super family father to get these kids showered, dressed, make breakfast, clean and wash the dishes, pack their bags and hustle them off to school—all within the next 90 minutes.
No problem.
But in “Incredibles 2,” Mr. Incredible is anything but that.
He is totally inept as I suppose the filmmakers at Pixar think all working fathers can neither chew gum, stand up vertically and challenge the day.
Sigh.
Thank you. I feel much better now.
So, the child-weary Mr. Incredible (unless he is body slamming someone into a cement wall) is really a wussie, unable to manage himself nor his children of who he eventually turns them loose along with some newly found super buddies—Voyd (Sophia Bush) being one of note—in the film’s final reel in which their city gets trashed but ultimately the Incredibles (again) save the day.
I can easily relate to Bob Parr dealing with his baby boy, Jack-Jack, who has laser vision.
I have one of those little ones right here.
Our little Jeff Jr. can (and frequently does) shoot projectiles out of his body.
Just not out of his eyes.
This is a Pixar film. You expected something else, maybe?
“Incredibles 2” is a fun family film that does no real harm.
Just remember: It’s a cartoon!
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