Incredibles 2 (2018)

Incredibles 2 (2018)

IMDB Rating : 8.3/10 ( as on 06.07.2018)

Bob Parr (Mr. Incredible) is left to care for the kids while Helen (Elastigirl) is out saving the world.

Director: Brad Bird

Writer: Brad Bird

Stars: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell

PG | 1h 58min | Animation, Action, Adventure 

IMDB link Here

Along with the Toy Story trilogy, The Incredibles is one of the jewels in the crown that made Pixar the ne plus ultra of animation companies. 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. It remains to be seen whether everyone who loved the original when they were 6 years old and is now 20 will rush out to catch this follow-up, but there's plenty of crackling entertainment value here for viewers from 5 to 95.

Still front and center are the key elements that made Brad Bird's original creation so captivating: The tested but resilient bonds within the Middle American family with secret superhero lives, the fabulous late-'50s/early '60s space-age-obsessed design scheme, the deep-dish reservoir of wit, a keenly expressed sense of what it takes to maintain a balanced marriage and great command of a narrative curveball employed to register frequent surprise.

On top of all this is the pronounced female slant (something obviously planned many years ago but utterly in step with modern currents): The story shines the spotlight on Elastigirl, with adolescent daughter Violet beginning to spread her wings. For good measure, infant tyke Jack-Jack hilariously begins displaying his potential with incipient displays of Incredible behavior.

Oblivious to the passage of real time, the tale picks up exactly where the first one left off, with a massive drill guided by the aptly named Underminer (John Ratzenberger) breaking up through the pavement to wreak havoc on Municiberg.

For anyone other than resolute animation haters and congenital sourpusses, these first minutes provide an exhilarating rush of retroactive pleasure, partly as a reminder of how distinctively different The Incredibles was from anything that had come before — or has come since. Bird's authorial attitude is both sly and sincere, with a view of the nuclear family as the locus of human virtue and strength. It's a perspective that is both tested and reaffirmed multiple times throughout the film, first and foremost with Mr. Incredible resigning himself to taking a backseat in order to tend to child-rearing while his wife ventures out to right the world's latest wrongs.

Given the official opposition to superheroes, it falls to entrepreneurs to make use of their talents (the original Incredibles expressed the same aversion to government in favor of private enterprise), and it's Helen who gets the call from telecommunications tycoon Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk). The latter is arguably the least well-conceived and -written character in the film — he's given to upbeat platitudes and cliched attitudes — but the slack is at least somewhat taken up by his tech-wiz sister Evelyn (Catherine Keener), a provocative beauty who may have more going on than meets the eye.

The  sex reversal where physical achievement and societal role acceptance are concerned is the central dramatic conceit and sociological preoccupation of Incredibles 2, which will make it as popular with women of all ages as it will be for kids. Naturally, the other members of the family ultimately get to join in the fun, too, but Elastigirl is decidedly first among equals this time around.

Two fondly remembered characters from the original, Edna Mode and Frozone, are back, but rather briefly. Of the new characters, the best is the wily Evelyn, distinctively voiced by Keener. Returning veterans Nelson, Hunter, Vowell and Samuel L. Jackson (Frozone) slip back into their roles as if not a day has passed. Director Bird once again deliciously essays Edna.

As before, one of the key creative contributions here is the super jazzy score by Michael Giacchino. Essentially unknown at the time, the composer put himself on the map with his work on the first entry and he's been one of the busiest soundtrack tunesmiths in Hollywood ever since.

 Read full review at Hollywood reporter

Movie Rating ★★★★☆     

Superhero family return in fun and zippy sequel

 Scott Tobias

The decision to begin The Incredibles 2 at the end of The Incredibles is the most conservative choice possible for a company looking to cash in on one of its biggest hits. It also happens to be right. Bird gets the freedom to put his head down and send his characters on a new adventure without having to worry about where they belong in the DC and Marvel universes, or which themes and moods might be en vogue. There are plenty of signs of modernity here, including stunning advances in Pixar’s photorealistic backdrops and an electronic menace tailored for the smartphone age, but Bird has reason to feel confident that his family of superheroes doesn’t need to be reinvented. Like all families, they’re a perpetual work in progress.

The Incredibles 2 opens with a fresh reminder that the specials are not always appreciated, especially when a mission like stopping the Underminer (John Ratzenberger) causes far more damage to public property – a monorail that flies off the track, a collapsed bridge, a giant drill-bit boring into city hall – than the money in a bank vault could cover. The supers remain illegal, leaving Mr Incredible (Craig T Nelson), Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), and their three precocious children homeless, jobless and living out of a motel room, resigned to a future of more white-collar drudgery as Bob and Helen Parr.

With the peerless Toy Story trilogy as the obvious exception, most of Pixar’s worst films are sequels – Cars 2 and 3, Monsters University, Finding Dory – because they siphon off the originals without even attempting to match their audacity. The Incredibles 2 plays it straight, too, but Bird revivifies the expected elements, like the hilarious return of costume creator Edna Mode, and considers the family from a new angle. Mr Incredible and Elastigirl swapping gender roles is good for some fish-out-of-water laughs – his frustration over new elementary-school math techniques really hits home – but Bird seizes on a key insight: healthy families can reconstitute themselves and come out better for it. Healthy sequels can, too.

 Read complete review at The Guardian

The superhero family entertains again  

Shalini Langer  

Why would you take 14 long years to make a sequel to the critically and commercially successful The Incredibles, and pick up right where you left off? That is a question Incredibles 2 may find hard to answer, though not that it is trying to.

Writer-director Brad Bird, who also wrote and directed The Incredibles, places his new film in the same scenario, with the Parr family’s struggles with its superpowers at a time when “supers” have been declared illegal by the government. There are no worlds to save again, no big villains to slay, and the fight remains more about family this time and less about finding oneself. But having hit the mark with all this last time, Bird is not too far off the mark reprising it.

On the contrary, the highest points of the film and its acutest observations — even if predictable — remain Mr Incredible Bob Parr’s struggles with reconciling to the success of his wife, Elastigirl Helen, in a new superhero role. He is left handling son’s math, daughter’s boyfriend troubles, and a baby who won’t sleep, as Elastigirl tries out a new suit and a new vehicle, in pursuit of a new villain.

It’s with the villain Elastigirl is pitted against that Bird tries to make his most ambitious statement. He is ‘Screenslaver’, who delivers a long speech about destroying a world where there is no real entertainment and where “every experience must be packaged” and delivered via a screen. However, it is an unconvincing argument, especially when you realise that what you suspected all along lies at the bottom of it.

The action, however, is kept to a minimum as the film realises its strength lies in having a superpower family to go back to. And so, it keeps returning to the home front, where Bob’s challenges with the children remain entertaining, especially when the baby Jack-Jack comes into his own and has a delightful encounter with a raccoon.

When that threatens to overstay its welcome, Bird efficiently diverts your attention with ‘Voyd’. She is a shy superpower with short blue straight hair hanging to one side, covering half her face, who is a fan of Elastigirl, speaks in a lisp and sounds very, very, very like Kristen Stewart. Mum is the word why, though Voyd’s powers include creating wormholes and warping space around her.

Read complete review at The Indian Express