Elastigirl: The Movie

Rating: 6/10 (21 August 2019)

INCREDIBLES 2
RATING: 3.2/5
Honestly, this should have been called "ELASTIGIRL: THE MOVIE" because she's really the main star. The rest of the Incredibles family takes a back seat to her, so much so that you barely even get to see the family suit up, much less work together as a real team. Dash suffers the most out of the family in that regard. If you're looking for character development, it's not really here outside Mr. Incredible learning how to be a stay at home dad, and even that's questionable. Frozone gets more screen time, so he's not just the token Black guy this time around. The villain is pretty meh by the end of it, and if you give their evil plan more than a passing thought, it ends up being pretty dumb and pointless overall.
This film is basically a time capsule, being that it takes place pretty much right after the first Incredibles movie. After 14 years, 3 Presidents, and 10 years of Marvel Studios superhero movies, Incredibles 2 needed to be way more than just a run of the mil sequel. This may have worked when they were at the top of the superhero mountain in 2004, but they've been lapped by so many other superhero movies now that this really doesn't cut it in 2018. Add to that the fact that they're still on the whole superheroes being illegal thing, which Captain America Civil War covered much, much better, and Incredibles 2 just ends up feeling outdated.
The score is pretty fantastic though. It's loud, it's bombastic, very 60s James Bond but with a superhero flair to it. The voice acting is solid with Mr. Incredible being the MVP with all the range of emotions he has to go through. The animation is great, no surprise there from Pixar. The action is pretty fast paced and serviceable, but for some reason, i just wasn't impressed by it. I really don't know how many other ways Hollywood can shoot a runaway train scene. It also didn't help that the first fight just reminded me how much of a Fantastic Four ripoff The Incredibles are too. I chuckled twice during the whole film, but my theater laughed a lot, so the jokes were clearly working on some level.
One of the other issues is that there are really no clear positive male figures in the film. Mr. Incredible is relegated to a stay at home dad, and he can't even figure that out on his own. Mrs. Incredible though, she can apparently do it all. In fact, almost every female in this film is infallible, while almost every male has some character flaw or has messed something up somehow. It's really weird. Like, the movie props up the women at the expense of the men, which i think sends a bad message.
If you're looking for a few laughs, action, and to go back to 2004, you'll probably have a great time with Incredibles 2. If you're looking for a good story, good villain, balanced positive male and female figures, and a superhero team that actually practices teamwork, then you should probably look elsewhere. Outside the animation, music and jokes, the movie fails on almost every other front and that's just unacceptable after 14 years. Beware the hype with this movie, cause it simply does not live up to the first Incredibles, at least not for me, not by a long shot.