BEFORE: As I write this, I'm just five films into my Summer Rock Concert chain, between the two films centered on Jimi Hendrix, so I'm going to have to watch this one, write the review, and wait for a chance to link to it. I've got a spot in mind, but it won't come around until September, some time right before Halloween. I also want to see another superhero film, "Ant-Man and the Wasp", while it's in theaters, and then I think I'm done seeing things on the big screen for this year. By the time "Venom" comes out on October 5, I'll be out of Woody Harrelson movies, and I don't think I'll be able to link to it. October will probably be all booked up anyway. Sorry about that - but I've done really well this year in going to the theater and finding a way to work those films in to my chain, even if sometimes I had to sit on the review for a month or two. I hate posting out of order, but if I don't go within the first few weeks of a film's release, it could disappear from theaters and then my plans get shot to hell.
Samuel L. Jackson carries over from "Kingsman: The Golden Circle" - umm, I hope.
THE PLOT: Bob Parr, aka Mr. Incredible, is left to care for the kids while Helen is out saving the world as Elastigirl.
AFTER: Before the screening of "Incredibles 2" (in addition to 6 previews for horrible upcoming kids movies like "Wreck-It Ralph 2" and a completely unnecessary re-working of "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas"), and about a dozen commercials, further delay was created by the inclusion of the new Pixar short "Bao", which is the story of a Chinese woman who makes a dumpling that comes to life, and she raises it like a child. People are creaming over this short, and it may even win an Oscar - stranger things have happened - but I just didn't get it. It was confusing as all hell - it wasn't made clear to me that this woman was already a mother of an adult son, and it also wasn't clear whether she was imagining the dumpling coming to life, or whether the dumpling really did gain sentience, or whether her reality was merging with fantasy, or what. There's a storytelling fail somewhere in there, but I don't want to let that encroach on my opinion of "Incredibles 2". Shorts don't count toward my year-end total, anyway.
Then the start of the film was further delayed by a message from the film's creators and stars, to explain the 14-year delay between the first "Incredibles" movie and the sequel, while thanking the audience for their patronage and patience. This was completely unnecessary, because movies take time, especially animated ones, and all the fans KNOW this, so no apology is needed. Nobody wants a film studio to put out an inferior product, or to rush a story to meet some arbitrary, non-existent deadline, so it takes as long as it takes. Screw the fans, because I had to wait between 1983 and 1999 for a new "Star Wars" film, that's even longer, and nobody apologized to ME when "The Phantom Menace" was released. Suck it up, you babies. You get what you get when Disney makes it.
But speaking of story points that don't work, "Incredibles 2" makes fun of New Math, an approach to grade-school mathematics that had a very brief lifespan in the 1960's. The gag appeared in the previews for this film, and that worried me a great deal - kids today are just not going to know what "New Math" is, because it's no longer being taught, it doesn't exist any more. Didn't anyone at Pixar research this point? The only people who are going to find this funny are people who studied math before I was born, which means it's aimed at the GRANDparents in the audience, not even the parents. If the humor's not going to land on the majority of viewers, why not find something that will? If it seems like a joke's not going to work (and it doesn't) then find another way.
After complaining about this, a friend pointed out to me that this film might be SET in the 1960's, which is a conclusion one might draw from the whole design of the film - the furniture, the cars, they give off this sort of Neo-future vibe that sort of correlates to the late 1960's or early 1970's, perhaps to invoke that sort of Adam West "Batman" take on superheroes. But this doesn't really explain things, either, because this is also a world where there are mag-lev trains and electric motorcycles, and hydrofoils and other things that didn't exist in the 1960's. So now I don't know WHEN this story is supposed to take place, but essentially it takes place in "story time", which is whenever it needs to happen. Still, I prefer things that are a bit more clear. (Like the name "Screenslaver" is a pun based on "screensaver", but those didn't exist until what, the 1980's? Also, nobody said the words "telecommunications corporation" in the 1960's, they still said "phone company".)
But there's a lot to like here, I just wanted to get the negative bits out of the way first. My wife went with me to the movies and she had a great time, laughing a lot at the antics of super-powered baby Jack-Jack, and most of the time, she doesn't even LIKE babies. There's a whole ton of action, twists that even I didn't see coming, and mostly I liked the family-based drama, even when those things were the slowest bits of the movie.
Separating the family here into two parts made sense - while Elastigirl is off being a superhero working high-profile cases (even though that's technically illegal) the rest of the family is essentially still a unit, with Bob and Violet each being focuses of the story. Bob because he has to play "house-husband" for the first time (this also plants the family dynamic back in the 1960's, great, more antiquated "Mr. Mom" stuff...) and Violet because she's romantically interested in a boy for the first time. By limiting the plot to two storylines that are bound to re-connect with each other, the film avoids the problems seen in "Despicable Me 3", where there were so many daughters that the story didn't know what to do with them all, so they just stuck one in a field, waiting for a unicorn, in a thread that never paid off. But then, there's a bit of that problem here, too, because they don't really give Dash anything notable to do in this film, outside of the superhero stuff.
At first "Incredibles 2" seems like a giant step forward for women's rights, with the Mom working and the Dad staying home, but since his character HATES it, and at first is no good at it, it really isn't - because his default setting is "Men should work, women should stay home" and nobody corrects him to say it doesn't have to be that way. And then when it gives the teenage daughter (who for some reason now looks older than her parents) something to do, it's all about a boy, not any hobby, interest or talent that she could develop on her own. Nope, the only thing teen girls do is think about teen boys - isn't that another stereotype that should fall by the wayside? (Now to be really progressive, she could have been attracted to another girl, but that's a different movie...).
It's also too bad that the story relies so heavily on hypnotism, which continues to foster the belief in our culture that there is such a thing that exists. It just doesn't, and everything performed by hypnotists in stage shows is based on deception or parlor tricks. There are trance states and meditative techniques that may help people relax or quit smoking, but the movie-style of hypnotism only exists in fiction. It's too bad that the story couldn't have been written without this crutch, also frequently used in comic books - though they've started to find other ways to achieve the same result. Instead of "hypnotizing" Captain America to turn evil a couple years ago, someone used a Cosmic Cube to change the time-stream, so that Cap was "always" a sleeper agent for HYDRA. It's a long way to go to achieve a similar story point, and it might be more outlandish in the long run, but at least it doesn't fool people into thinking hypnotism is real. Again, it just feels like some writer was just too lazy to check - .
As my wife pointed out, the plot point of having superheroes outlawed and hunted gives "The Incredibles" a setting similar to the one that the "X-Men" frequent. And their powers and family-based structure riffs on the "Fantastic Four", one has strength like The Thing, one has invisibility/force-field powers like Invisible Woman, one stretches like Mr. Fantastic and the baby sometimes has fire-based powers like Human Torch. All this makes me wonder if Disney bought Marvel several years back so there would never be a lawsuit about this. I mean, why would one division of the company sue another?
Ah, but I still haven't said many good things about this movie yet - sorry, maybe I'm still feeling disgusted from those previews for "Wreck-It Ralph 2" and "The Grinch" (not to mention "How to Train Your Dragon 3" which isn't coming out unti MARCH 2019...). The action sequences are very, very good here, the opening one where the Incredibles battle the Underminer, and the middle one where Elastigirl tries to stop the train. The end one on the hydrofoil boat was a little too complicated, but still counts as a big, giant, thrill-ride sort of thing. And this is where the movie really MOVED, so many things going on, but even then, the passing of the kid ("You babysit" "No, YOU babysit") still felt a little tedious.
I also liked the debate over whether it's OK to break the law in order to change the law - this debate about vigilantism should come up in superhero movies even more often than it does. It's there in the background in "Avengers" films and "Batman v. Superman", but they all just sort of gloss over it. Here it's a thorny issue, especially when trying to justify Helen's actions to a couple of kids who can't see the logic in it. This could be very important to today's kids when you look at our current political scene, the President and Congress passing all kinds of wacky executive orders and legislation these days, and today's kids are going to be tomorrow's voters, and hopefully they'll help select people who will work for positive change, and not just undo whatever the last President did out of spite.
I'm on break now until October 1, when I'll kick off my horror-based programming - 21 films this year, and it'll be a mix of both recent films and classic monster movies. Yes, some are left over from last year's TCM "Monster of the Month" line-up, I'll explain more about the content and the linking logic behind it in just a few days. Right now, I've got to go submit materials to get a short film qualified for the Oscars, a daunting task when you're only given 2 1/2 weeks to arrange a screening in L.A. and then put all the necessary paperwork and supporting materials together. Well, I guess that keeps me out of trouble, anyway.
Also starring the voices of Craig T. Nelson (last seen in "Gold"), Holly Hunter (last seen in "Moonlight Mile"), Sarah Vowell, Huck Milner, Bob Odenkirk (last seen in "The Disaster Artist"), Catherine Keener (last seen in "Get Out"), Jonathan Banks (last seen in "Gremlins"), Brad Bird, Isabella Rossellini (last seen in "Joy"), John Ratzenberger (last heard in "The Good Dinosaur"), Barry Bostwick (last seen in "Nancy Drew"), Phil LaMarr, Eli Fucile, Michael Bird, Sophia Bush, Paul Eiding, Jere Burns, Adam Rodriguez, Usher (last seen in "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping"), Kimberly Adair Clark.
RATING: 8 out of 10 oxygen masks
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