A benefit of animation is the ability to stop time. Bart Simpson has
been the same age since 1989. Here, the time between original movie
and sequel was a full fourteen years. However, thanks to the wonders
of technology, The Incredibles 2 starts
immediately after the first film ended. Now, you will know exactly
what happened when the villain Underminer (looks like a mole)
burrowed beneath the city with a big drill to rob several banks. The
human actors certainly look older but all they lend here are their
voices and those are the same. Actually, there was a casualty. The
young boy who voiced Dash in the earlier movie had to be be replaced by a
different young boy. Still everyone else is back. Craig T. Nelson
voices Bob Parr/Mr. Incredible, Holly Hunter voices
Helen Parr/Elastigirl, Samuel L. Jackson voices
Lucius Best/Frozone, Sarah
Vowell voices Violet Parr (the author Sarah Vowell did not turn the
ingenious bit of casting that landed her this part, and her first
role in a movie, fourteen years ago into a voice career, The
Incredibles 2 is her second
role), and the Director Brad Bird again voices Edna Mode that tribute to old Hollywood costume design.
The Incredibles 2 is above
all an action film. The superheroes fight villains and do so at
regular intervals. At the beginning of the movie, they fight the
Underminer together. The collateral damage from this fight has
superheroes banned again (the bank after all was insured, so if the
Incredibles had done nothing, things would have turned out better).
As the government program is terminated, a billionaire philanthropist
steps into the void. This man is voiced by the incorrigible
excitement of Bob Odenkirk, perfect. The billionaire believes that
superheroes have an image problem. He proposes that they wear cameras
on their clothes and present their best sides first. By that he
means, only Elastigirl and
not Mr. Incredible because
she wrecks less things while saving them. Mr. Incredible comically
fights to hold onto his dignity and
Elastigirl goes on to save runaway trains and fight villains every
twenty minutes or so in spectacular display.
Meanwhile, Mr. Incredible is
relegated to taking care of his family. Never has such a task been
presented in such a heroic light. Those who are old enough will
remember when American education “changed math” much to the
chagrin of old men trying to help their sons with their homework.
And can you really help a teenage girl deal with anything? The most
pressing problem however is the toddler Jack Jack who is budding with
new random and frightening superpowers. The movie’s best moment has
to be when Jack Jack fights a raccoon, who starts the fight with way
too much confidence and is continually surprised by the toddler’s
more and more dangerous capabilities. Jack
Jack is taken at one point to Edna Mode who goes crazy with the
creative possibilities of a super-suit for such a superbaby.
The Incredibles franchise is
notable in its slightly conservative tone. The first movie took
swipes at bureaucracy and personal injury attorneys. The
Incredibles 2 continues on this
thread. This can be seen
first in the billionaire’s
modern liberal idea to present superheroes in a more favorable light
by not highlighting the white man (I
say that this discrimination is from a conservative point of view
because it presupposes that the movie’s world would find a woman to
be more acceptable than the white man. We all tend to see ourselves
as the victim). That poor
white man,
it really hurts to not be wanted. At
another
point, the villain of the story, the Screenslaver, presents a very
compelling reason for why
it wants superheroes to remain
illegal. Screenslaver posits that when there are superheroes around,
normal people become complacent about their place
and situation. Why should
they try to better themselves
or fight back when they can just call on superheroes to
save the day? Superheroes,
this villain reasons, make people weak. This is essentially an
argument against patriarchal, i.e. big, government. The movie is not
completely about this point. It is very funny and action-packed, but
it is notable that a kid’s movie would so articulately make this
point (even if, you know,
the villain is ultimately vanquished). Pixar is a company that
contains a multitude of voices.
Pixar has unfortunately
gotten so successful they feel compelled to make sequels for their
best films, i.e. most of them. If they were a less successful
company, this movie may have been made ten years ago. (Instead it had
to first wait
for sequels of Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc., Toy Story, and
Cars (twice)
to be made). The Incredibles 2
is notable in that it is better than the first one. It is as funny
and action-packed (perhaps more so) but also has a better villain and
a better point to it. After fourteen years, and a stupid amount of
other super-hero movies produced in the meantime by other studios,
this sequel had much more to say about the genre than it had before.
Give Pixar another Oscar. I most likely won’t see a better animated
movie this year.
p.s. Samuel L. Jackson currently has
the record for most box office receipts for movies he has acted in,
$5.589 billion dollars to be
exact as of now. He
just reswiped
this record from Harrison Ford, $4.963
billion dollars. How did he
do it? Well, apart from being a reliable work-a-holic, he is also a
big team player. He added substantially to his record this year with
supporting roles, first in Avengers: Infinity War
and now as Frozone in Incredibles 2.
