Incredibles 2 – Film Review

It’s hard to believe it’s been 14 years since The Incredibles was released. Incredibles 2 continues the journey of the Parr family, still struggling to consciously live a normal life as superheroes have been outlawed.

Mr Incredible finds himself shelved as a superhero and needing to step-up as a responsible parent, reluctantly looking after his children, Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack (two of which are old enough to take care of themselves). Meanwhile, mum is flung back into solo superhero duties as Elastigirl to help campaign for superheroes to be legal again.

I genuinely love Pixar, but Incredibles 2 would be a first for me to not like a Pixar film. While visually stunning, the film is lost upon excessive dialogue, not enough action scenes and really annoyed me with Mr Incredible feeling emasculated whilst his wife (with very feminist tones throughout the film) does the heavy lifting to provide for the family. I really don’t think these themes were necessary, are stereotypical and aren’t exactly original. We also see more of the parents than we do the children of the Parr family, with the children barely having their own individual storylines.

The only saving grace of the film would be the scenes where Jack-Jack faces off against a wild raccoon, which also happens to be the funniest and most entertaining scene of the entire feature. If you strip the superpowers away, all you really have is a dysfunctional American family with very little character development who somehow magically and unconvincingly get it together to save the day at the end of the film. In my opinion, that’s not really entertaining, even with the superpowers.

I really don’t recommend Incredibles 2. I expected something amazing, but found the film quite slow, generic, dull and unsatisfying. I believe children and new audiences would find it difficult to enjoy as there is too much dialogue and barely any (if at all) fun moments. The sad truth is, Incredibles 2 is incredibly disappointing (especially in comparison to its predecessor) and will probably only be appreciated by those who grew up watching the original film who are extremely attached to the characters, which I am not. I think Disney-Pixar left it too long to create this sequel (14 years) and I genuinely hope that there isn’t a third film. We don’t need it.