Movie Reviews: Incredibles 2
The 20th movie in the Pixar library, ‘The Incredibles 2’, is finally here. We revealed the audience (you, other people, etc.) rankings of the previous 19 Pixar movies yesterday and ‘The Incredibles’ came in at number two. The hype for this sequel, 14 years after the original, has been huge, so expectations have been fairly high for all fans. Make sure to rate ‘The Incredibles 2′, and all 2018 movies, by clicking this link. Let’s get into our review…
Jeff (91/100): They did it again, folks. Pixar did it again. They somehow managed to capture the charm from ‘The Incredibles’ and put together a really satisfying sequel. Is it as good as the original from 2004? No, but that’s a fairly tall task only movies like ‘The Godfather Part II’, ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘Toy Story 2’ & ‘Toy Story 3’ have been able to complete. Could it have stretched itself to some new limits? Sure, I guess? A lot of what the movie offers you is somewhat similar to the first one, but it isn’t beat-for-beat and there’s plenty of new, fresh elements that will keep you engaged and have you leaving very pleased. I am not going to judge the movie in respect to the whole package and just look at it as a standalone movie, like I try and do for any release.
I love Pixar’s emotional movies, as evidenced by me placing ‘Coco’ as my number six ranked movie in the studio’s library, but ‘The Incredibles 2’ is such a great change of tone. There are highs and lows like any movie, but the positive, upbeat and hilarious script shows off the range Pixar possesses. The pacing in the movie is great as it allows the story to breathe, gives new characters a chance to establish their backstories all while keeping the audience engaged and never really hitting a lull. The villain is was decent, as well, especially compared to some of the duds we usually get in superhero movies. Another thing some superhero movies lack is a great score, but, much like ‘The Incredibles’, ‘The Incredibles 2’ has fantastic music. I truly think Michael Giacchino should receive an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score.
Despite its nearly two-hour runtime, the movie flies by in a flash amidst the action and laughs. Outside of ‘Coco’, ‘The Incredibles’ franchise is probably the most aesthetically pleasing Pixar movie visually speaking. The futuristic 1960’s look makes both movies, especially the sequel, stick out uniquely compared to all other superhero-based movies. Pixar’s animation team did an amazing job at having this movie leap off the screen with its visuals. I can’t move on without mentioning that Jack Jack is hands down the star of this movie. To avoid spoiling anything, I will just leave it at that!
With superhero movies dominating the movie industry lately, it’s great to have something with such a different vibe and feel. ‘The Incredibles’ continues to be everything the ‘Fantastic Four’ franchise wishes it could become. It’d be smart for Disney to rebrand that franchise in a similar way once they get the rights from FOX. (Though, fuck those movies, they’ve wasted so much of my time and money). If you don’t like Pixar and Disney movies, then, well, I guess don’t see this? But otherwise, run to the theater to check out ‘The Incredibles 2’.
The funny thing about Pixar is that because of the massive collection of great movies they produce is that, even with a 91/100 rating, ‘The Incredibles 2’ only comes in at number twelve on my rankings.
KenJac (93/100): A pure blast, ‘The Incredibles 2’ was well worth the wait. As a well known ‘The Incredibles’ super-stan (it’s the only DVD I own for some reason), I was certainly worried going into the movie. There’s no way it could live up to the first, right? I mean, that was 14 years ago. Times were different. Ashlee Simpson had a Top 10 selling album of the year, the Dyson Air Multiplier wouldn’t hit shelves for five more years and everyone always wanted to go paintballing for some reason. Well, have no fear, because Brad Bird struck gold again.
I’ll start with the bad. It was a little too long, and the dialogue was a bit odd at points. One of the best things about the original is how cohesive it is. Every line seemed to have a purpose and segued effortlessly into the next. There were points in this movie where it didn’t feel that way and came off more like poor editing. Maybe my only other complaint is that the narrative for the villain was a bit overdone and predictable. I can think of quite a few recent big name movies where the antagonist has had the same motives. That’s all I can think of to criticize this movie with, though, which is a great sign.
Now for the positives, literally everything else. The voice cast killed it just as hard as the original, and the new additions Bob Odenkirk, Sophia Bush, Catherine Keener, and the voice acting god himself Phil LaMarr were all amazing as well. Also, they replaced the voice of Dash and the new voice actor may as well be the original kid. I couldn’t tell the difference at all. The movie also looked phenomenal. Everyone was psyched up after seeing some of the first visuals (in the tweet above) a while back, and they didn’t disappoint at all. The action sequences were all tremendous, with great sound editing and angles giving you a great vantage on the fight scenes. Jack Jack was the star of the movie, with Bob’s ‘Mr. Mom’ growing pains serving as the vessel for his comedy. He had the theater in stitches from start to finish. Lastly, my boy Michael Giacchino killed it again on the soundtrack. Just as jazzy, fun and whimsical as the first.
While not better than the original, it’s still a great movie in its own right. Do I think Brad Bird needed to wait as long as he did so that he could direct ‘Tomorrowland’ and ‘Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’? Probably not, but I’m happier he preferred quality over speed. I couldn’t be much happier with the end result, and I hope they make some more sequels while they still can.
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Trillballins will drop his score this weekend and we will review the movie in full on next week’s Lights, Camera, Barstool, which you can subscribe to here. ‘The Incredibles 2′ is Officially Buttered, as the audience gives the movie an early score of 91/100. We want to see what your movie ratings are for the year 2018 and new releases. Click the links at the bottom of this post to submit your rating for everything released so far this year.
We want to note that you can find out how we rate movies by clicking this link. A bunch of people have sent us messages asking why some recent scores are sort of close to Rotten Tomatoes “ratings.” We remind you that the percentage on Rotten Tomatoes is not an actual score, but the percentage of people who view the movie favorably (usually above a 70/C+ range or higher). The actual rating is below the percentage, so, if anything, we rate good movies somewhat higher than the critics. ‘The Incredibles 2’, for example, has a 7.8/10 right now on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 95% approval rating.
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