The sequel that delivered

Rating: 8/10 (15 April 2020)

This film delivers in what it intends to do- entertain. For all the hype leading from our childhoods, the incredibles 2 gives us our super hero family facing obstacles both villains and their personal battles.
Similar to the previous plot, the incredibles 2 enhances the idea of normal civilians vs superheros. In fact the movie starts off with just that, a normal boy who couldn't believe his crush was the famous invisible girl on tv. He struggles to understand how he feels about this until ultimately succumbing to the memory erasure. We start seeing our heroes off with a bang- facing the underminer villain. By failing to stop the destruction however, this leads to their quick notoriety for being a burden to society and not letting the police force do their due dilligence. Constantly, this theme is enforced of the mythical heroes helping people in need while being held responsible for their actions. The bill to legalize super heroes is placed and the objective of the movie. This works well by introducing new heroes, while upholding the roots of the original film.
The good: The incredibles provides spotlight to FEMALE heroes. One of the rare movies that actually enforces women to fight their own battles, not be the damsel in distress. Elastigirl being the figurehead of heroes is awesome, she isn't just mr incredibles wife, shes independent, rational, intelligent and secure enough to fight her own battles just like she did before her husband. Violet having the unique power of being invisible would make fights difficult for her, but the producers do well in not showcasing this. She shows strong initiative along with Dash to take matters into her own hands and save her family. She isn't some moody teenager with a cliche teenage romance, she can dish it when she wants on top of that. Violet has great character development from the first movie thats just added on.
Scenes are amazing. The train chase-down with elastigirl on her motorcycle dodging fast roaming cars, her free crawling (ala spiderman) across the city, the building chasedown of screenslaver, the boat. They are all beautifully animated and different from on another. While the settings are different from the first movie and each other, each provides intense value and magnificence.
The main message of family first over everything is once again enforced in this movie. Its a clear heart-felt message for everyone- young and old that no matter how different people may be from others, or even each other, love is binding and important. The characters do comes to grips with this not just through fighting villains but ordinary activities like the growth of the children and Mr incredible playing the role of housewife.
The movie is hilarious around all characters. It isn't just stupid funny, for a younger audience, but comedy is centered around the characters for mistakes and misunderstandings which even we could relate to. The film doesn't push this with longer scenes in a cringe like attempt to induce laughs, it times it perfectly well infused in this situation.
The bad-
Being an action movie, some of the fights are subpar. Take MR.Inc for instance- his only fights come from either the beginning of the movie or the end. These aren't truly satisfying fights either for the Father of the incredibles because he doesn't truly succeed- he doesn't get the miner and he doesn't stop screenslaver (his wife does). There should have been more fights featured for him being of the most important and arguable main character of the show. The climax is ruined not just for him, but everyone as there isn't a real menacing villain but a normal lady whose objective doesn't even make sense. (Outlawing heroes because her father died due to being unable to reach them isn't really a heroes fault.... ?)Villain aside, none of the heroes seem to be pushed to the brink of their effort aside from elastigirl who only seems to get the blunt force of this. It doesn't feel like a climax of a hit movie, just another day for the crew.
Through the whole movie Mr Incredible. plays the house wife. I get it, destroying gender norms by having the husband doing the wives work, however MR INC is shown to be incompetent and lazy at times. I think his character is somewhat butchered here because all he does is fail with Violet's romance, unable to understand Dash's basic math, and not even dependable to look after a toddler child. I'm not sure if they were going for the dumb meat head look but thats all Mr. Incredible seems to give off, unlike the previous film.
Dash is not a good character. I wish we could see more from him except the film only shows him being comedy relief, most of the time even just being plain annoying to the cast. He doesn't seem to grow at all except for the incredibile sequence of pushing a button. There should have been more fights for Dash or some sort of plot centered around him but his character seems to be neglected throughout the movie. In fact, his sole purpose of being comedy relief and the jester of the family seems to have gotten eclipsed by his younger brother. The one in diapers....
Overall, the film is great, myopic for being entertaining and flashy. There is critique here and there but being a film more on children, I don't think its fair to evaluate for things its not supposed to be. Unfortunately it doesn't deserve a perfect rating because of it's neglect on certain characters and a lackluster ending.