By George Haerle
For The Daily World
It’s been 14 years since Disney/Pixar released the first “Incredibles” movie, and fans have been clamoring for a sequel every day since then. “Incredibles 2” is totally worth that wait.
And though all that time has passed for us, it hasn’t for the Parr family of superheroes: The sequel picks up right where we left off in 2004, as the Underminer makes his appearance and the Incredibles suit up to enter the fray.
This is maybe the only blast-from-the-past the movie indulges its audience with. From there, the movie sets up its premise: Though the Incredibles may have made a comeback after defeating Syndrome previously, the world still deems them and all other “supers” illegal and unwanted.
Left without a home and unemployed, Mr. Incredible/Bob Parr (Craig T. Nelson), Elastigirl/Helen Parr (Holly Hunter) and Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) are approached by an eccentric businessman and his inventor sister (Bob Odenkirk and Catherine Keener, respectively) to lead a comeback for all supers and take on a new villain: the mysterious Screenslaver.
But as Mr. Incredible, who still longs to make his comeback as a hero and once again fight crime and save the day, it’s Elastigirl who’s chosen to be the campaign’s poster child — the first super to come out of hiding. With their roles flipped, everything goes wild for the Parr family and becomes loads of fun for the audience.
Elastigirl’s return to super exploits is genuinely cool to watch, with her adventures rivaling some of the action scenes in many of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. Mr. Incredible is left to play Mr. Mom to his kids, dealing with Violet’s (Sarah Vowell) personal crisis of coping with the stresses of teenage life combined with her family being superheroes, Dash’s (Huck Milner) mischief and bewildering math homework, and baby Jack-Jack’s (Eli Fucile) emerging spectrum of super powers, all of which cause havoc.
Jack-Jack provides the core of most of the film’s laughs. His fight with a raccoon trying to raid the family’s trash bins — a toddler’s version of a superhero brawl with a villainous arch-nemesis — is one of the funniest things to play out on the big screen all year. Naturally and hilariously, the baby causes Mr. Incredible to have a full-on breakdown while Elastigirl is out being a working mom.
Every character’s representation and their parts to play in the story are perfectly balanced; everyone from Mr. Incredible to Jack-Jack gets a great amount of screen time, and the characters are just as lovable as ever — and Elastigirl is really given a chance to shine with some great action scenes.
The story is fun and the script is tighter and smart, with not a boring moment throughout the two-hour run time. The only way to emphasize perhaps just how good “Incredibles 2” is would be to dare say the possible truth: It’s better than the first one, and one of the most enjoyable films this year.
The first film succeeded not only as a great addition to Pixar’s top-notch portfolio of animated features, but also as an exceptional superhero film that fleshed out its characters and their interrelationships incredibly well.
So here’s the point: To be able to top that with a sequel that’s even more original than the first helps make director Brad Bird one of the greatest animated filmmakers of all time, and makes “Incredibles 2” one of the best movies of the year so far.
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“The Incredibles 2” is currently playing at the Riverside Cinemas, 1017 S. Boone St. in Aberdeen.
George Haerle holds a bachelor’s degree in creative writing for media and lives in Cosmopolis.
