The Incredible 2 (2018)
Directed by Brad Bird
Written by Brad Bird
Starring Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L. Jackson, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Vowell
Release Date June 15th, 2018
Published June 14th, 2018
Why don't I love The Incredibles? I have been racking my brain trying to come up with reasons why I have fallen out of love with the Pixar franchise and there really are too many little issues with the story, characters and lack of laughs for me to narrow it down. After sitting through nearly 4 hours of an Incredibles 1 and Incredibles 2 double feature I walked out baffled that the magic I felt back in 2004 was missing.
The Incredibles 2 picks up the story of the Parr family led by Bob Parr AKA Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) and Helen Parr AKA Elastigirl and including their three children, oldest daughter Violet (Sarah Vowell), middle child Dash (Huck Milner) and baby Jack Jack (Eli Fucile). Like their parents, the kids have superpowers as well with Violet possessing invisibility and being able to create force fields and Dash having super speed.
And then there is Jack Jack whose powers only came out at the end of the first Incredibles movie and only when mom and dad couldn't see them. In Incredibles 2 a significant subplot is dedicated to Jack Jack's developing more than half a dozen superpowers, none of which he can seem to control and some of them incredibly dangerous. Jack Jack's powers are the bright light of this otherwise drab outing.
The main story of Incredibles 2 centers on Helen taking a job as a superhero and leaving Bob at home to care for the kids. The CEO of a major corporation, Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk) has dedicated some of his vast fortune to helping bring superheroes out of hiding. If you remember the original film, Supers were driven underground following a series of catastrophes and lawsuits. Deavor wants to use Elastigirl to show the world it still needs superheroes.
Helen immediately finds a nemesis in The Screenslaver, a villain who uses screens to hypnotize people into doing his bidding. Using her smarts Helen is able to make quick work of The Screen Saver but she wonders why it turned out to be so easy, considering how brilliant the villain had seemed as he was executing his plan for world domination. The answer is rather unsurprising, I had the villain guessed rather quickly and had to hope that the movie would find a clever subversion of expectations. Sadly, that never comes.
There is nothing all that remarkable about the story being told in Incredibles 2. Where most other Pixar movies have invention and humor on their side, The Incredibles relies on vague allusions to deep issues intended to flatter the audience for recognizing them. This is however, only puddle deep philosophizing. The makers of Incredibles 2 claim to have something to say about gender roles as they put Helen in the workforce and Bob at home but there isn't much beyond that presentation of the idea.
Helen is a terrific hero, smart and tough and a great role model of how a woman can be both a world class superhero and a great mom. This isn't exactly new ground that we are covering here, The Incredibles 2 is set in a vague early to mid 60's aesthetic and is deeply rooted in the aged politics of the time which seem quaint in today's environment. The Incredibles 2 director Brad Bird brings nothing new to this and the lack of depth in the characters is exposed by how simple the empowerment message is.
Yes, it's a movie for kids, I can hear and I am well aware of what The Incredibles 1 & 2 are. Toy Story is also a movie for kids and yet the makers of that film franchise still find deep and meaningful messages about family and aging and acceptance that go beyond the surface while maintaining a story simple enough for kids to follow. The Toy Story movies are also wildly funny on top of the deep themes, something that neither of The Incredibles movies are.
There is a distinct lack of laughs in The Incredibles 1 & 2. In fact, Incredibles 1 is downright disturbing at times in its lack of a sense of humor. A running bit about the dangers of capes features multiple deaths of superheroes and eventually the death of the film's lead villain. Then there is the Razer Blade scene wherein our hero hides behind the rotting corpse of a former friend to escape detection by a high tech hunting gadget. Incredibles 2 doesn't have anything that rivals those dark moments but it's not much brighter in tone either.
Watching this double feature of The Incredibles I was taken aback by the lack of fun. There is a dourness that hangs over these films, an oppressiveness that edges into the movie in the subplot about superheroes forced into hiding. The stories nod toward Ayn Rand of all people in blatant talking points about how super people have to sublimate themselves to make average people feel better about themselves.
In The Incredibles 1 the super villain, Syndrome (Jason Lee), wants to give everyone high powered gadgets so that everyone can be super and thus no one can be super. The Incredibles 2 turns Winston Deavor into a John Galt like figure who aims to create a utopia where superheroes can once again take their rightful place in society, out of the shadows. I'm not here to argue Randian philosophy, I'm just expressing how off-putting it is to endure such mediocre philosophy during what should be a fun adventure.
In The Incredibles 2 there is an attempt to hypnotize supers and use them for villainy. Some have pointed out that this is akin to the government using the best and the brightest to further the agenda of the mediocre. I'm not saying that was Brad Bird's intention but the film is so obvious in the Randian comparisons that I can see how people would arrive at the conspiracy theory. Here again, even if there is an agenda at play, there is no depth or commitment to it just as there is no commitment or depth to notions about gender roles.
The makers of The Incredibles 1 and 2 seem to want credit for depth without actually having to be deep. The defenders of these movies want to claim they are 'just kids movies' while still wanting to claim they have deeper themes. None of it works because neither The Incredibles or The Incredibles 2 commits to a specific idea of what the movie is supposed to be beyond a pastiche of superhero cliches dressed up with the talent of Pixar animation.
Then there is the villain, The Screensaver. This is not a particularly compelling villain. I already mentioned how obvious the identity of the villain is and how the film fails to make the character or the plot all that interesting beyond the predictable reveal. What I haven't yet discussed is the very notion of The Screensaver as a character. The character uses screens to hypnotize people. The movie is set in the 60's so the screen in question is the television screen, for the most part.
The obvious joke however is like a dad joke observation at its most lame. The Screensaver is a puddle deep comment on our addiction to our screens, our phones, tablets and other such modern technology. Like the attempts at Randian philosophizing and gender role questions, this idea is underwritten and relies on surface level observations. Obsessing over screens is bad, put away your screens and spend time with your family and blah, blah, blah. Thankfully, this a mostly unformed idea and we don't spend too much time on it but it's another failed attempt at a deeper theme, a hallmark of The Incredibles movies.
I have long been a Pixar apologist, one who has gone as far as defending the quality of The Cars franchise, which yes, I do believe is a better and much funnier series than The Incredibles. I have loved nearly everything Pixar has done and back in 2004, I was a big fan of The Incredibles. I had misgivings then but I brushed them aside to focus on how fun the movie was. It's less fun on a rewatch however as its flaws stand out more now that I am so familiar with it.
The Incredibles 2 underlines the flaws of the original and piles on even larger flaws. Brad Bird's baby is filled with underwhelming ideas and a lack of laughter. There is a distinct joylessness to The Incredibles 2. The filmmakers need to lighten up a bit and while scenes involving baby Jack Jack have a light funny feel, the rest of the movie is rather drab and obvious. Worst of all, the fun is undermined by the faint notions of depth, ideas dressed up as deeper themes but lacking actual depth.
