Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Samuel L. Jackson, Bob Odenkirk, Catherine Keener, Isabella Rossellini
Intro:
...while briskly and breezily enjoyable, The Incredibles 2 lacks the poppy freshness of its predecessor.
Picking up almost precisely where 2004’s The Incredibles left off, The Incredibles 2 sees Pixar’s superhero family thrust into the limelight at the behest of hero-philic entrepreneur Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk), who wants to leverage the goodwill earned by their victory against the villainous Syndrome to lobby the governments of the world to lift the ban on costumed heroes.
Or at least, one member of the family is so thrust – Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), who is deemed more presentable to the public – super strong Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) simply does too much damage to public property when he sets out to thwart crime. So Elastigirl gets to save the day with all the backing a a high-tech mega-corporation can bring to bear (including a snazzy new and incredibly toyetic Elasti-Cycle) while the Mr. plays Mr. Mom to kids Dash (Huck Milner) and Violet (Sarah Vowell), plus baby Jack-Jack. Of course, things aren;t what they seem, and before too long the whole family must come together to defeat a hidden villain – you know the drill.
Indeed, while briskly and breezily enjoyable, The Incredibles 2 lacks the poppy freshness of its predecessor. That was inevitable, perhaps; in the 14 years since The Incredibles debuted a lot has happened, much of it branded “Marvel”. While the Pixar package can present supers in a none-more-suitable vibrant cartoon style, we’ve been seeing this kind of thing in live action (or, let’s face it, indistinguishable CGI) for some time now. While the quality remains high, the novelty is gone.
The Incredibles 2 is a hell of a lot of fun, though, make no mistake. The jokes are on point. The voice talent is, er, incredible, with Samuel L. Jackson returning as ice-powered Frozone, plus Bird as dryly droll fashion designer Edna Mode, and Catherine Keener joining in as tech genius Evelin Deavor, the brains complementing Winston’s business brio. The action set pieces are great – there are some things you can’t do in live action not because the technology can’t handle it but because it spills the banks of what we wrongheadedly call “realism” – and we get a whole roster of new and weird heroes as the capes come out of the closet.
Still, Pixar might want to step up the production pace a bit if they want us to stick around for 3.
