Review: Incredibles 2

Incredibles 2
Cert: PG / 125 mins / Dir. Brad Bird / Trailer



So the house-lights went down for Cineworld's latest secret screening on Thursday evening, the BBFC card bore the words "Incredibles 2", and a cheer went up in the auditorium. I wasn't one of those cheering. I thought the first Incredibles movie was basically fine, but no more than that. This should explain the rest of the review…

Set after that first entry, we find Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl, Bob and Helen Parr, trying to balance the demands of raising a young suburban family, while being a superhero team in a city where superheroes have been banned. Billionaire tycoon Winston Deavour approaches the Parrs with a scheme to reverse the legislation through positive marketing, but super-villain The Screenslaver has other ideas, hypnotising citizens to carry out his warped will...

And y'know what? It's fine. Great fun. But no more than that.

On the plus side, the characters are likeable (where they're meant to be), the script is funny, engaging and has great pacing, while the voice-cast are all thoroughly committed to their roles. The cinematography and animation rendering is fantastic, and Michael Giacchino is having the time of his life on scoring duties.

But other than the central team whose visual style is carried over from the first movie anyway, the character design here is so bland it's shocking. They could be from any studio-animation of the last fifteen years. And the plot itself is absolutely bare-bones, just enough to cover the film, but doesn't feel like it's bringing anything new to either the ongoing story, the genre or the audience.

It used to be that an animation would be made when the events the film-makers wanted to show couldn't realistically be depicted in live-action, especially with superhero flicks. But there's very little in Incredibles 2 in terms of abilities or setpieces that we haven't seen in Marvel/Paramount, Fox and Sony's output over the last decade. Live-action has caught up, so where does that leave Mr Incredible?

Big Hero 6 tells a more interesting superhero story, while Inside Out is better at deconstructing home-life angst, and they're from this same studio. What's more, the former movies have moments of genuine, heart-wrenching emotion which Incredibles 2 is sorely lacking. I had fun with the movie, but it really feels like filler on Pixar's part.

High-grade filler, but no more than that.

Well, The Incredibles, frankly.



I guess, although it's only the scale of the action which sells that.



It is.



It's not.
Although fair play to Bob Odenkirk for making me think Steve Carell had been cast in his role. The audible-likeness is uncanny.



It's possible.



There is (buried, but I'm sure I heard one).



Level 1: The voices of Mace Windu, Kit Fisto and Bren Derlin are in this.







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