My Thoughts: INCREDIBLES 2 (2018)

The 2004 animated Pixar film, The Incredibles, was a film that people seemed to love immensely! Many clamored for a sequel since day one! I, on the other hand, never loved The Incredibles that much. Yes, I do like it and think it’s a good film, but it was never one of my favorite Pixar films nor one that I was dying to see a sequel to.

Nevertheless, Pixar released a sequel, Incredibles 2 (notice the “The” is dropped), in 2018. Directed by Brad Bird, the film received overly positive reviews and made over a billion dollars at the worldwide box office! But, what did I think? Did I like this better than the first film? Read on for my review, but be warned of mild spoilers ahead!

Incredibles 2 picks up pretty much where The Incredibles ended: at the scene where the villain, The Underminer (voiced again by John Ratzenberger), attacks the city. Now it’s up to the superhero Parr family to stop him! The family includes Mr. Incredible (voiced again by Craig T. Nelson), Elastigirl (voiced again by Holly Hunter), Violet (voiced again by Sarah Vowell), and Dash (voiced by newcomer, Huckleberry Milner). Their superhero friend, Frozone (voiced again by Samuel L. Jackson) also assists them in this endeavor.

However, The Underminer manages to escape while the Parr family is held responsible for damage caused to the city’s infrastructure. Superheroes are still banned in this country and the Parr’s latest “failure” doesn’t help change that law. However, the Parrs are soon propositioned by Winston and Evelyn Deavor (voiced by Bob Odenkirk and Catherine Keener, respectively), a brother/sister duo who wants to make superheroes great again via their telecommunications company. They enlist the help of Elastigirl for their mission while Mr. Incredible faces a new life of taking care of the kids and staying at home. All this occurs while a villain known as the Screenslaver terrorizes computer/television screens all over the city.

That’s as much of the story as I’ll relate here, but I can safely say that I DID enjoy this film more than its prequel (although that wasn’t necessarily a difficult feat)! You can definitely see how animation has developed from 2004 to now!

And in terms of the story, it covers many avenues such as a criticism to how enslaved to screens we are as a society as well as topics of feminism. One thing I appreciated about the feminist aspect of this film is that it didn’t portray female characters as invincible or flawless or promoting one way of living over another, etc. They’re all portrayed as realistic human beings. In the film, there are female characters saving the day, there are female characters being villainous, there are female characters failing, there are female characters accepting help, etc.

And the same can be said for the male characters: one way of living isn’t preferred over another. There are male characters saving the day, there are male characters handling domestic affairs, there are male characters running a business, etc.

I can’t say that this film is in my top five favorite Pixar films as there are certain pacing issues I have with the film, but overall, the film isn’t a bad film. Check it out if you haven’t already!