Stars: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Huck Milner, Samuel L. Jackson, Bob Odenkirk, Catherine Keener, Brad Bird
Director: Brad Bird
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature Film)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars
The studio has seen a shift since then, and it doesn't appear that it's interested in righting the shift, relying heavily on lesser sequels to great movies, as well as continuing the Cars franchise into two ill-advised expansions of the series. One could make the argument that only three of the studio's films in the past eight years were worth a damn (Brave, Inside Out, and Coco, the latter being the only one that would have still stood out during Pixar's heyday), so I was curious heading into Incredibles 2 what to expect. After all, The Incredibles was the only film in the franchise that really felt sequel-loaded, as all superhero movies come with the implicit promise that the heroes will return to fight another day. What I found was a film that reminded you of the obvious charms of the first cast and story, but felt like a bit of a retread, as if the same magic that made the original pop couldn't be mustered in an era where the film also has to be "marketable."
(Spoilers Ahead) We may be 14 years later, but the sequel itself is only taking place just after the initial defeat of Syndrome and with the family taking on the Undertaker. Like so many superhero movies, the film is less interested in classic "villain attacks city, hero saves the day" and more with the reality of what superheros mean: the fear, the unknown, and the obvious, costly destruction that the incur by slamming into buildings and throwing around parked vehicles. When a wealthy superhero fan named Winston Deavor (Odenkirk) offers them the chance to rehabilitate their image while also giving them a fabulous mansion in which to reside, they jump at the chance, but Deavor is more interested in Elastigirl (Hunter) than Mr. Incredible (Nelson) because she's not quite as cavalier during a fight about the nearby infrastructure. This results in Elastigirl becoming a more important celebrity than Mr. Incredible, who is stuck at home taking care of the family and dealing with a world where he's the second fiddle.
The film unfolds in a pretty traditional manner from here. We see that family is the "most important thing" and that a marriage is a partnership where we don't need to rely upon traditional gender roles. A Catherine Keener-voiced villain is easy to spot from her early scene as Deavor's sister Evelyn, and the final end sequences are pretty traditional. All-in-all, the plot, which was pretty inventive in the original picture (at the time the superhero genre wasn't as tired as it currently is and the idea of superheroes being pariahs hadn't been beaten to death in cinema), falls flat here. It's fun-this is a great cast, but this character's have nothing new to say.
This is, perhaps, the biggest problem with Pixar's output today-it's all "fine." Incredibles 2 is by no means a bad movie, but it isn't close to great, and that's what I think we expect from Pixar still & it's certainly what critics reward, claiming that this movie is "as good as the original" when it's just a flimsy copy. Hunter and Bird's (back as the flawless Edna Mode) voicework combined with the spooky Five Nights at Freddy's-inspired showdown with the faux ScreenSlaver (which reportedly triggered seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy) are the highlights, as is the art direction and Jack-Jack. The rest, though, is pretty blase. It's not bad work, but it's hard to compare it to the heyday of the first Incredibles, and I wish critics would admit that so that Pixar would be put in a little effort.
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