Imagine this, in 2004 I was 12 years old and graduating from elementary. At the same time, Disney-Pixar was peaking with their great animated movies with amazing storylines. The craze for superhero movies was not that huge then. We can all agree that The Incredibles was ahead of its time. And now in 2018, 14 years after the original movie came out, Disney-Pixar delivers the much-awaited movie that a generation of moviegoers has been waiting for! Bingers, get ready for The Incredibles 2! I attended the advanced screening last June 11 at the IMAX Theatre in SM Aura Premier despite the horrible weather! Celebrities, bloggers, media, and kids but mostly millennials were at the event and our excitement was ON THE ROOF! So, was the movie worth the 14-year wait? Find out in my review!

A Continuation

When we think of a sequel for a film, our automatic expectation is there would be a time jump. There will be events that happened during the gap which will then be revisited during the movie. In The Incredibles 2, that is not the case. I am sure that it is still fresh in everybody’s mind how the first movie ended. With a cliffhanger, right? And that left us, CRAVING for more. Well, crave no more. Director Brad Bird listened to us all and picked up exactly where we left off.

Yes, we did not skip any point in the film. The Parrs are still how they were and the events that they have to deal with are exactly similar. If that’s the case, why even bother to have a sequel? Fair enough. The sequel served as our entry point into the regular daily life of a family of superheroes. Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl juggles parenting with their roles while Dash and Violet are always playing the dual-life game as superpowered individuals and typical teenagers. Meanwhile, Jack-Jack takes the spotlight as he discovers the multiple powers that he possesses!

Ladies to the Front

With Bob unemployed, Helen now has to provide for the family. It was a choice between a regular measly paying job and a high-paying job as a superhero. To a point, the film put the family in a dilemma that even non-superheroes can relate to. They might have their special powers but at the end of the day, they still have family problems that everybody can see themselves facing at a regular day.

Helen got a job as a crime-fighting superhero where she gets to live her past alter ego as Elastigirl while also earning for her family. But it comes at a cost: she gets away from the roles of motherhood so it is now Bob’s task to be the attending parent. Bob takes the backseat and hangs his Mr. Incredible suit to see his three kids: Dash, Violet, and Jack-Jack. This was an interesting route for the film to put the female to the front while the man of the house takes the backseat. It’s not just at the Parr household because even the superheroes such as the newcomer Voyd.

Part  of Elastigirl’s job is to fight crime to advance the legalization of superheroes. Meanwhile, a villain spreads horror to the people of the city by using a contemporary tool- screens. With a seizure-inducing technology, anybody who witnesses it gets under his control. While the family aspect of the film strengthens the film, the villain, however, is weak and expected. In the end, the crime-fighting side of the plot seemed like an afterthought. Not that it is a problem but that took a  chunk of the movie’s running time which could have been used instead on the Parr family and/or Jack-Jack and Edna’s dynamic.

The Star of the Show

Undoubtedly, Jack-Jack will be the star and the saving grace of the show. He is cute. He is adorable. He has multiple powers. And he slays with Edna, the star of the original movie. While Violet’s and Dash’s teenage issues challenged Bob’s parenting skills, it is Jack-Jack’s road to self (power)-discovery that tested Mr. Incredible. It challenged him so bad that he had to repeatedly ask for help from his colleague and friend, Frozone!

Honestly, my first worry is the movie will be exploiting Jack-Jack’s cuteness until it gets tiring. To my relief, that did not happen. Instead, The Incredibles 2 used it to further the plot. As Jack-Jack explores more of his untapped abilities, the film painted the superpowered family more as a real ordinary family. It exposed more of their quirks and vulnerability which pulled us closer to them.

The Incredibles 2 is, as everybody puts it, worth the 14-year wait. It picked up exactly where it left off but the story did not get left behind. It still got the humor, action, and conflict that made the first movie a success. Another thing that I loved about the movie is the return of Michael Giacchino’s energetically stylish scoring which completed the new age superhero vibe of the film. For what it’s worth, The Incredibles 2 lived up to the hype by telling a story that kept up with time and helped it make its mark despite the influx of superhero movies in the recent years!

Comments