Psycho's Movie Reviews #265: Incredibles 2 (2018)

Incredibles 2 is a 2018 American computer-animated superhero film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Written and directed by Brad Bird, it is the sequel to The Incredibles (2004) and the second full-length instalment of the franchise. The story follows the Incredibles as they try to restore the public's trust in superheroes while balancing their family life, only to combat a new foe who seeks to turn the populace against all superheroes. Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell and Samuel L. Jackson reprise their roles from the first film; newcomers to the cast include Huckleberry Milner, Bob Odenkirk, Catherine Keener and Jonathan Banks. Michael Giacchino returned to compose the score.

Following the success of The Incredibles, Bird postponed development on a sequel to work on other films. He attempted to distinguish the script from superhero films and superhero television series released since the first film, focusing on the family dynamic rather than the superhero genre.

Incredibles 2 premiered in Los Angeles on June 5, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on June 15, 2018 in Disney Digital 3D, Dolby Cinema, RealD 3D, IMAX, IMAX 3D, and 4DX formats. The film received largely positive reviews from critics, with praise for its animation, humour, writing, and musical score. The film made $182.7 million in its opening weekend, setting the record for best debut for an animated film, and grossed over $1.2 billion worldwide, making it the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2018, the second-highest-grossing animated film, and the 15th-highest-grossing film of all time during its theatrical run, along with being the highest-grossing Pixar film and the third to gross $1 billion after Finding Dory and Toy Story 3. Incredibles 2 was named by the National Board of Review as the Best Animated Film of 2018. The film was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 76th Golden Globe Awards and 91st Academy Awards, but lost both awards to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Plot

The film picks up directly after the events of the previous film. The Incredibles and Frozone battle The Underminer and successfully prevent him from destroying City Hall, but are unable to stop him from robbing a bank and escaping. The collateral damage gives the jealous government the perfect excuse to shut down the Superhero Relocation Program, denying the Parrs and other superheroes financial assistance. Violet's love interest Tony Rydinger discovers her superhero identity, causing agent Rick Dicker to accidentally erase his entire memory of her instead of just the incident.

Wealthy businessman Winston Deavor and his sister Evelyn, who run the media and telecommunications giant DevTech, propose secret missions for superheroes which will be recorded and publicized to regain public trust. Winston chooses the less accident prone Elastigirl over Mr. Incredible for the initial missions. Bob struggles in his new role as a stay-at-home parent: trying to help Dash with math homework, Violet's heartache over Tony standing her up for their first date (due to his memory wipe), and Jack-Jack wreaking havoc with his burgeoning superpowers. Edna Mode develops a suit to help control Jack-Jack's abilities. Meanwhile, Elastigirl encounters supervillain "the Screenslaver", who projects hypnotic images via TV screens. After preventing him from destroying a crowded commuter train, and thwarting his attempt to assassinate an ambassador, she tracks him to an apartment building and unmasks him as a pizza deliveryman who claims to have no recollection of his actions.

At a party celebrating the Screenslaver's arrest, Winston announces a summit of world leaders to legalize superheroes, hosted aboard his luxury yacht, the Everjust. Elastigirl discovers that the arrested pizza deliveryman is not Screenslaver but was being controlled by hypnotic goggles. Evelyn forces the goggles onto Elastigirl, revealing herself to be the Screenslaver. While keeping her restrained via a chair in a freezing cold room to limit her stretching abilities, Evelyn explains her grudge against superheroes since her father was killed by burglars while trying to call superheroes for help instead of hiding, during the banning and relocation of superheroes 15 years before; (unlike Winston who rightfully believed the lack of superheroes was the reason) and her mother's subsequent death due to heartache. She plans to sabotage her brother's summit by causing a catastrophe to irreparably tarnish the reputation of all superheroes, ensuring they remain outlawed forever and the public will not return to relying on superheroes to handle crises. She lures Bob into a trap and sends a group of hypnotized superheroes to subdue the Parr children. Frozone tries to protect them but is overwhelmed.

Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack escape in a refurbished Incredibile, the supercar once owned by their father, and reach Winston's yacht. Onboard, the hypnotized Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, and Frozone recite a vindictive manifesto on air designed to paint superheroes as a threat, and then subdue the ship's crew, aim the yacht at the city, and destroy the controls. Jack-Jack removes Elastigirl's goggles; she in turn frees Mr. Incredible and Frozone. The Incredibles and Frozone release the other mind-controlled superheroes, and all work together to turn the yacht from crashing into the city. Elastigirl apprehends Evelyn attempting to escape in a jet. Superheroes regain legal status around the world.

Some time later, Tony accompanies Violet to a movie with the family. When the Parrs spot a carload of bank robbers, Violet leaves Tony at the theatre, promising to be back in time, and the Incredibles suit up and give chase in their Incredibile.

Production

Development

Following The Incredibles, Brad Bird directed his next film for Pixar, Ratatouille, which was released in June 2007. Near its premiere, Bird said he was open to an idea of a sequel to The Incredibles, but only if it could be better than the original. He stated, "I have pieces that I think are good, but I don't have them all together." In a May 2013 interview, Bird reiterated his interest in a sequel: "I have been thinking about it. People think that I have not been, but I have—because I love those characters, and love that world I have many, many elements that I think would work really well in another Incredibles film, and if I can get 'em to click all together, I would probably wanna do that." While publicizing the first film, Bird had already conceptualized the eventual approach where Bob and Helen would switch roles, and Jack-Jack would develop multiple powers unknown to the family.

At the Disney shareholder meeting in March 2014, Disney CEO and chairman Bob Iger confirmed that Pixar was working on an Incredibles sequel, and that Bird would return as both director and screenwriter. Bird started the script around April 2015, and said that the Incredibles sequel would be his next film after Tomorrowland.

Writing

One challenge in writing Incredibles 2 was how to deal with the large number of superhero films and television series that had been released since the first film, such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. To try to differentiate the sequel, Bird wanted to avoid tropes related to the superhero genre: "I don't think that kind of idea stays interesting for very long. For me, the interesting thing was never the superhero part of it. It was more the family dynamic, and how do superhero things play into that." He said he wanted to include some unused ideas from the first film, and that the new story would focus on Helen Parr / Elastigirl.

Though the sequel was released fourteen years after the first, Bird did not want to use a narrative element like an ellipsis or to come up with new characters, and instead continued from where the first film left off. This allowed him to keep characters with the same superpowers and not have to develop new ones, nor did he need to figure out how to deal with Violet and Dash being adults. This also allowed him to keep Jack-Jack as an infant with an array of powers, which Bird likened to how infants are able to understand numerous languages. While the plot of the 2005 follow-up video game to The Incredibles, The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer, begins at that same point of time, the film discards the game's continuity. The film was produced with a production budget of $200 million.

Casting

In November 2016, Pixar announced that Holly Hunter and Samuel L. Jackson would reprise their roles. During the 2017 D23 Expo, it was confirmed that Craig T. Nelson and Sarah Vowell would also reprise their roles, and that Spencer Fox, the original voice of Dashiell "Dash" Parr, would be replaced by younger newcomer Huckleberry Milner. Later that month, Bird and John Ratzenberger were, also, confirmed as reprising their characters from the first film.

In November 2017, Pixar announced that Bob Odenkirk and Catherine Keener had joined the cast. In January 2018, it was announced that Sophia Bush and Isabella Rossellini would voice new characters Voyd and The Ambassador, while Jonathan Banks would voice Rick Dicker after the character's original voice actor Bud Luckey retired in 2014; after his death in 2018, the film was dedicated to Luckey's memory.

Animation

One advantage that Pixar had with Incredibles 2 was the advancement of technology the company had seen since the original film and a team of much more experienced animators. Producer John Walker said, "I think that one of the things that excited Brad and Ralph Eggleston, the production designer, was the fact that the technology existed now to finally realize the designs in the way that they had hoped to realize them in 2004. There were no notions of, 'Well, we don't know how to do long hair, we don't know how to do humans, we don't know how to do muscles.' Everybody knows how to do it. It's just now about doing it quickly." Because Pixar no longer used the same systems from the first film, all the characters had to be created from scratch on the computer again. The studio also used physically based human eye models for the characters for the first time, which possibly made the eyes larger and more stylized than that of real humans.

Music

In 2015, Bird confirmed that Michael Giacchino would return to compose the score. Giacchino began work around May 2017. The soundtrack album was released on June 15, 2018 and on CD two weeks later. In addition to the film's score, it includes the vocalized theme songs for Mr. Incredible, Frozone, and Elastigirl heard in the credits, as well as bonus versions of the songs sung by Disney's a cappella group, DCappella, and the latter's version of the track "The Glory Days" from the first film.

Release/Reception/Box Office

The official premiere of Incredibles 2 took place in Los Angeles on June 5, 2018. It was theatrically released in the United States on June 15, 2018, in IMAX and 3D. It is accompanied by Pixar's short film Bao. The film's release was originally scheduled for June 21, 2019, but the date was moved forward to 2018 as it was ahead of schedule, and Pixar handed the 2019 release date over to Toy Story 4.

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 387 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Incredibles 2 reunites Pixar's family crimefighting team for a long-awaited follow-up that may not quite live up to the original, but comes close enough to earn its name." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 80 out of 100, based on 51 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale, the same score as the first film, and those at PostTrak gave the film a 93% overall positive score and an 83% "definite recommend".

Robert Abele of TheWrap, praised the film, saying, "Whatever the opposite of phoning in a sequel is, that's Brad Bird's progressive-minded, thunderously fun mix of super saves, throwback aesthetics and family comedy." A.A. Dowd, writing for The A.V. Club, felt it was "A sparkling contraption of an animated comedy, funny and often wondrous in its mid-century-modern vision of an alternate America frozen in the amber of a bygone idealism." David Ehrlich of IndieWire, gave the film a "B+", saying, "When the Parrs are pushed out of their comfort zone, Bird settles into his... after inciting a Spielberg-level monorail chase that reaffirms Bird's lucid gift for kinetic and character-driven action filmmaking, the movie blasts off and never looks back." Stephanie Zacharek from Time considered it "bold and rapturously entertaining," while David Sims at The Atlantic, dubbed it "dazzling, thought-provoking, and sometimes overwhelming in terms of plotting." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, gave the film a 3.5 out of 4 stars and said, "Long-awaited follow-up brings back everyone's favourite superhero family—and suggests that we should give our caped-crusader pop obsessions a rest." Manohla Dargis of The New York Times, wrote a positive review of the film, saying, "The family that fights together remains the steadily throbbing, unbreakable heart of Incredibles 2, even when Bob and Helen swap traditional roles. There's something too self-conscious—overcompensating much?"

Variety's Owen Gleiberman called the film "fun but far from incredible" and wrote "It's true that the Toy Story films, all three of which are fantastic, did variations on the same theme of a toy's obsolescence, but as movies they kept the emotions close to the surface. In Incredibles 2, we never get that rush of feeling." Mark Kermode of The Guardian gave the film a four out of five stars and said, "Slapstick genius, profound social comment and a monstrously funny infant combine to conjure a magical second outing for the superhero family." John Nugent of Empire magazine also gave the film a four out of five stars, saying, "There's some quibbles to be had in an over-familiar setup, and an under-served villain, but overall this is a gloriously fun family parable, and as entertaining as any superhero movie you'll see this year." Brian Tellerico of Rogerebert.com, gave the film a 3.5 out of 4 stars and said, "Having said that, Incredibles 2 understands something that most family sequels, even the Pixar ones, fail to comprehend—we don't just want to repeat something we loved before. We want to love it all over again. You will with Incredibles 2." Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune, gave the film 2.5 out of 4 stars and said, "Incredibles 2 is content to punch the clock and stick to straight, bombastic action mode. In that mode, composer Giacchino's music is the most successful element, running nimble, beautifully orchestrated variations on themes that feel familiar in the best ways while retaining their spark. The animation is bright and visually dynamic. The script, well if the title were Satisfactories 2, it'd be about right." Ty Burr for The Boston Globe called it a "clattery, unfocused affair that at times is more irritating than fun." Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter, gave the film a positive review, saying: "Boosted by central characters that remain vastly engaging and a deep supply of wit, Incredibles 2 certainly proves worth the wait, even if it hits the target but not the bull's-eye in quite the way the first one did."

Incredibles 2 grossed $608.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $634.2 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $1.242 billion.

On July 1, 2018, the film passed $648 million at the worldwide box office, surpassing the $633 million the original film made in its entire theatrical run. It ended its run as the ninth-highest-grossing film of all time domestically and the highest-grossing animated film domestically. The film crossed the $1 billion mark on July 30, 2018, becoming the seventh animated film and the 36th film of all time to reach the milestone. It was also the fifth animated Disney film, the third Pixar film, and Disney's 18th film overall to gross $1 billion worldwide, as well as the fastest animated film to gross $1 billion, doing so in 46 days, surpassing Minions (49 days), but later being surpassed by The Lion King in 2019 (21 days), also made by Disney. On August 12, the film surpassed Toy Story 3 ($1.067 billion) to become the highest-grossing Pixar film worldwide. Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $447.4 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues, making it the third-most-profitable release of 2018.

Budget $200 million

Box office $1.245 billion

My Review

I hate most sequels and don't think most of them are necessary...they are just an excuse to squeeze money out of the popularity of the first film. This is especially true to kids' films in recent years an it seems like a bazillion cartoons and CGI movies have been made and remade in a cynical attempt to make money. Are they any good? For most, I'd say no. However, I am happy I saw Incredibles 2 as it was worthy of the franchise and offers enough new content to make it worth your time.

Of all the recent kids films, I must say that Incredibles 2 has the strongest feminist message. This is NOT a complaint. I liked seeing Mrs. Incredible become the family breadwinner and Mr. Incredible learn to be tender and a caregiver. There are also other feminist aspects of the story...but I'll say no more since it would spoil the plot!

While not one of my favourite Pixar films, 'The Incredibles' is still a very, very good film that has gone even higher in my estimations after a well overdue re-watch to get myself prepared for 'Incredibles 2', fantastically animated, exciting, funny, emotionally investable and ground-breaking with great characters. Expectations were high for its long awaited sequel fourteen years on, and while it is not as good a film, and what could and should have been super and incredible wasn't quite, on the most part 'Incredibles 2' was worth the wait.

'Incredibles 2' does lack 'The Incredibles' originality (not much new here) and its emotional impact and character development is also not as good, the latter particularly is noticeably thinner (Bob for example was more complex before). It was a little too long for a story as slight as it was, would have trimmed it by 15-20 minutes and tightened the first act's pacing with it taking a bit too much time to get going.

Like others, among my biggest problems were to do with the villain. The villain was forgettable (one of Pixar's weakest easily), the twist concerning their identity that was too obvious too soon. Found their plan convoluted, that when explained made me want a re-wind button which was not possible in the cinema, and the motivation was pretty weak and extreme, took a while for me to get my head round. While the characters are fun, it did feel like there were too many, not sure whether it needed that many superheroes that aren't given enough to do other than in the climax.

However, it may sound like 'Incredibles 2' was a bad film. It wasn't. Actually enjoyed it a good deal. The animation is fantastic, smooth, vibrant in colour and meticulous in background detail, some very striking details, a richly immersive setting and the characters are well designed. Michael Giacchino's score gets one in a rousing mood while also being dynamic with the action. The action is superbly animated and thrilling with real suspense and excitement.

Writing has many moments of humour that provides a lot of laughs (Jack Jack steals the show here, especially with his powers and his fight with the racoon, with some nice lines later from Edna), moments that probe thought and drama that's relatable and never too sentimental (if not as poignant as one would like). The story does grip, more so in the Elastigirl story that really held my attention before the villain reveal underwhelmed. The family drama stuff is also very prominent, and while it is repetitive at times and there could have been less of it the best moments are very funny and it is very easy to relate to the dilemmas the characters face. Pacing mostly excites when things get going.

Character development is nowhere near as strong here and it would have benefitted from less characters and more done with the existing characters and more thought with the villain and their plan/motivations, but the characters are mostly fun with the highlight being Jack Jack. The voice acting is terrific, especially from Holly Hunter, Craig T Nelson and Samuel L Jackson. Brad Bird is a lot of fun in Edna's small role and Catherine Keener, Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks are good additions.

Overall, very enjoyable but wanted to like it much more. 7/10

{HEHEHE... YOU WILL BECOME MY SLAVE 😵😈😈😈}