Our family is big fans of the original Incredibles movie. After a 14-year wait, can even Brad Bird and Pixar give us something that could live up to expectations?
In short? It was worth the wait.
1. The movie, plot-wise, manages to echo the original’s themes (family, family roles, supers in society) in a way that expands on them, not repeating them.
2. The artwork / animation is also clearly an evolution from the original — nothing radical, but with a lovely increase in detail and texture. This is a successor, but with 14 years of improvement in CG animation.
3. As with the art, the story, too, is more finely textured than the original. It’s a more complicated tale, with many more characters to work with. And yet it still works, and remains understandable. The complexity doesn’t lose the core of the story — this very special family and their friends and their dreams of both normalcy and greatness.
I’m very impressed, because there are so many ways this could have gone wrong — a repeat of the original, or shooting off in an odd or different direction, or (the fatal flaw of so many sequels) an exaggeration of the “best” parts of the original (cranking those elements up to 11, and discarding the rest).
Bird and Pixar have managed to avoid all of that. This could have actually worked as the first movie in a series. Good stuff.
4. As I mentioned, there is a raft of new characters, and we get just enough detail from enough of them to make them feel fleshed out. That, too, is a delicate balancing act, and one that works.
5. The movie is much more real-world in its setting than the original’s focus on Nomanisan Island. And it’s beautifully done, with a dazzling modern take on Mid-Century Modern style.
6. In some very real ways, Frozone is the most demonstrably bad-ass character in the movie. At the same time, I am very ready to meet his wife, Honey.
7. There is some remarkable heroism in this movie. There’s one that comes up late in the film that I won’t detail, but that was noteworthy in its difference from the original.
8. There are some media properties used as background — again, some fine representations of mid-century aesthetic — that I very much appreciate.
9. We saw the movie in 3-D. I was intentional about this, because I thought that the style would make good use of that third dimension, and it did. I’m sure it’s also fine in 2-D, but 3-D was quite nice.
10. There is no end-of-titles tag scene, but not only are the credits nicely enhanced all through, but there are some musical elements late in the credits that are definitely worth sitting there for.
Excellent movie. Very glad we went.
. . .
Okay, the elephant in the room: Did I like it better than the original?
Nope. But I like it nearly as much, and I could see resetting that conclusion upward in a few years, after I’ve had a chance to see it several more time.
Oh, and the Pixar short before the movie, Bao, is lovely and moving.
+Dave Hill I’ve seen snippets of the short, looking forward to seeing it as much as the main movie itself.
Btw, some fascinating differences, within the overall similarity, in the two posters shown above.
That said, if you are sensitive to flashing / strobing lights, be cautious.
https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/incredibles-2-strobe-light-warning-1202848920/
+Dave Hill I love that they still put "shorts" before the main Pixar feature. Some of them have been excellent over the years.
+Paul Scollon The only jarring note was that they movie actually started with a small vignette by the stars (Brad Bird and the major actors), thanking the audience for their support and patience in waiting for the new Incredibles movie for over a decade …
… and then made the audience wait even longer by sitting through the short.
It was a worthwhile wait (both were), but awkward.
I have one major complaint about this sequel. Unlike the original movie, it follows the current fashion of quick cut editing. Action scenes become choppy and hard to follow, and a lot of the work that was put into creating gorgeous, detailed settings is wasted.
An animation is also clearly an evolution from the original nothing radical, but with a lovely increase in detail and texture. This is a successor, but with 14 years of improvement in CG animation.