New Release Review: Incredibles 2

Incredibles 2

(2018. Director: Brad Bird. Starring: Craig T. Hunter, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell)

SYNOPSIS:

The superhero family returns and we follow their adventures as the family that fights crime together stays together. This time, a mysterious mogul offers to help lobby to change international law in order to make superheroes legal again, but can the family withstand the tension of one member operating outside the law whilst the others stay at home? 

The end of The Incredibles (2004) saw the family pulling together to fight crime. What happens next has been hotly anticipated. What will the fantastic four that put the live-action Fantastic Four to shame in terms of plot and pacing get up to? The answer is sadly, not as much as you'd hope.

Say what you like about this film, but the way it is drawn is incredible; the diligence given to creating a mid-century modernist feel (a sort of post-art deco movement) combined with more than a touch of Pop Art really makes this film pop. Taking a very large leaf out of the popular animated series Archer's book, the film gleefully embraces the chance to mix technologies in a world out of time. The high tech electric motorcycles mix with the sort of big red phone that Adam West would have answered. The deliberate archaism of ancient autocues and TV cameras contrast with touchpads that remain firmly in the realm of science fiction. Not for Director Brad Bird the too-dark colours of DC, or the four colour palette of Marvel.

The technical work that was put into this film was clearly immense. In animated form we can easily be caught up in admiring the fantastic attention to detail and artistry. Elastigirl's hair maintains the classic comic-book shape but moves and bobs ever so slightly when she talks. (Hair physics? What a time to be alive!) The movements are fluid and feel grounded in a way that heavily CGI'd live-action films like The Hobbit really can't match. Falling feels dangerous, punches and kicks connect with a weight that intuitively feels right. This all contributes to a suspension of disbelief that these aren't just cardboard cut-outs on a screen but living things and that, of course, really helps with our immersion in the film.

The music score, by Michael Giaccino, is another incredible strength of this film. Where the visuals enjoy a range of influences through time, the sound is much more clearly anchored in one era. A full orchestra gives their all, going bananas at the flimsiest of pretexts; their clear passion and almost overwrought score filling your ears with tunes very reminiscent of 60's spy thrillers and tense espionage with nary a modern interlude to be heard.

Incredibles 2 feels like a homage, a love-letter to the spy movies of the 60's in tone and atmosphere. The gadgets are there and other tropes of the genre, one could clearly see the use of a retractable floor to feed errant henchmen to hungry fish. The realisation of this world is striking and effective.

Unfortunately, Incredibles 2 suffers from a lack of substance. Hamstrung by trying to appeal to an audience old enough to remember 60's spy movies and still be of interest to kids, it carefully avoids mild peril that might interfere with its universal rating. Elastigirl is given several long action sequences, presumably to showcase her abilities but they fall flat. Perhaps it’s because we've grown accustomed to seeing incredible action sequences for superheroes in the intervening fourteen years. A better choice of hero might have been Violet who, with invisibility and force field projection, would have more interesting things to do than “be a bit stretchy”. We never really have a sense of danger for the protagonist, backup is always close by and their foes are strictly human in power level. No impossible odds to overcome, but merely the very difficult. Where half the fun of, say, a Bond movie would be watching them beat impossible death traps, that's just not an option here. The Incredibles had a sequence setting out the villain, Syndrome's, calculated machinations. Mr Incredible finds that previous heroes have been lured to their deaths to refine an unstoppable killing machines. Incredibles 2 just doesn't have that raising of the stakes. No one is ever properly in peril and that, as a trend in modern cinema, continues to irk. Let female protagonists face the same dangers as male protagonists. Or more dangerous! Raise the stakes! Let them overcome the impossible, so that it's even more impressive.

The film also sets up a series of questions and themes and then dances away from them without examination, afraid of giving its own opinion and becoming the more lacklustre for doing so. The film could have been about “what is right versus what is lawful” and an early scene sets this up but then fails to deliver. It could have been about “can vigilantism be acceptable?” Instead it raises that question and retreats to tread the safe and familiar ground of superheroes punching things. It even sets itself up to ask questions about parenthood, and the roles of mothers and fathers in childcare but, once more, balks at the hurdle. The unfortunate consequence of all this pussyfooting around is that a film concerned very deeply with technical immersion, where such levels of care have been taken that the shadows on a character’s face from overhead lighting move realistically, makes characters without depth. They change from being firmly committed to one stance to embracing its opposite with breakneck speed and that makes it hard to invest. If a character has no struggles to overcome, then we lose interest. Mr Incredible, who is supposed to be taking a back seat in the film, ends up becoming a more interesting character because he gets given hard choices and dilemmas to wrestle with, and thus we invest more in his struggle.

Incredibles 2 is a heartbreaker of a movie. It was always going to struggle to meet the expectations set by the first Incredibles showing but the hints and promises of a much more dramatic and emotional film show everywhere. It remains a treat for the senses and will certainly enthral and entertain many if not most.

Review by The Guildmaster.