It’s been 14 years since the first Incredibles movie. And it was worth the wait.
The Incredibles is a joy to watch. The energy of the movie is a mix of a Sean Connery Era James Bond movie and a comic book.
The world in which the Incredibles is set is a retro future setting of a late 1950s to 60s-cars have tail-fins, studio cameras have three rotating lenses, telephones have cords and a number pad, televisions have curved glass fronts. The style of the setting is part of the joy of the movie.
The movie begins with Agent Dicker questioning Violet’s date Tony Rydinger, the boy she had a crush on in the first movie and is scheduled to go on a date with. As per usual custom Dicker does a memory wipe, unfortunately also wiping out the memory that he has a date with Violet later that week, which will come into play later.
We move back to where the first movie left off with the Underminer attacking the city. It is loud and visually stunning action sequence. Mr. Incredible follows the Underminer down through the ground under the city where he discovers an entire laberyenth of tunnels which leads to the most elaborate bank heist ever. Blowing up explosives underneath the bank, which then falls underground, allowing the Underminer to walk into the vault and vacuum out the money from the safe. The Underminer escapes with the money, (are we looking at an Incredibles 3?) and Frozon and the Parrs stop the Underminers Runaway drill from crashing into more buildings and in the aftermath Dicker informs the Parrs that he can no longer help them, his department is being shut down. The Parrs need to move back underground and hid their identifies as superheros.
A familiar theme from the first movie, hiding ones abilities in hopes of staying safe and secure.
With the Incredibles and Frozone saving the city from even more distruction wealthy telecom businessman Winston Deavor and his sister Evelyn decide that now is a good time to changing the public perception of supers. Winston wants to change the world’s perception of supers because his father was a big believer in supers having a close relationship with previous Supers. Unfortunately their father was killed in a robbery when instead of hiding in the safe room in the house he called Gazerbeam but the phones were cut. (I love this world of superheros but landlines still in use.)
The villain in this movie is not the UnderMiner, but the Screenslaver. A hypnotist who gets people to do his bidding through screens he has hacked.
The Screenslaver provided the opportunity for Winston Deavor to show the world that Supers are useful and not a problem. Winston decided that it would be best to leave Mr. Incredible out of the first rescue, as according to the huge amount of data collected he causes a lot of damage. While on the other hand Mrs. Parr is able to do the job without as much damage or people being hurt. You don’t want people hurt when bringing Supers back into the public eye.
So Mr. Parr becomes a stay at home dad to Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack.
And this is Jack-Jack’s movie.
In the world of the Incredibles apparently Supers can have different types of powers, and Jack seems to have seventeen of them. One of them is the ability to jump to different dimensions. That’s sort of like a super-super ability. But it is played as a joke when Mr. Parr can’t find Jack-Jack when he is jumping between dimensions. He of course also shoots lasers out of his eyes, turns into a demon baby, and when he visits the ever popular Edna Mode he can’t replicate himself to other people, like a human chameleon. As in the first movie, the best scene in the movie is when Bob visits Edna Mode, and this time he brings Jack-Jack along with him.
Because he just can’t handle it anymore. Edna at first wants nothing to do with Jack-Jack, but soon Edna falls in love with Jack-Jack and the coolest relationship in the movie is born. Edna makes a suit and matching tablet to help Bob know which ability Jack-Jack is about to manifest. A very useful trick.
And as fun as Jack-Jack and Edna are together, the best scene in the movie is when Jack-Jack gets into a fight with a raccoon. A scene that felt out of place, but my six-year-old says is the best scene in the movie. She maybe right.
A video short with Edna and Jack-Jack would be the perfect addition to the Blu-ray.
Final Thoughts
The Incredibles 2 is a lot of fun. The style and setting is something to take in. Jack-Jack brings joy whenever he is on screen. The villain maybe too complex for younger viewers, but exists well in the universe.
If you can check out Incredibles 2 at the theater this summer.