The Incredibles 2 (Dir Brad Bird, 2h 5m)

 
I will happily go on record and say that The Incredibles is one of my favourite Pixar, if not one of my favourite animated films of all time; from the look and feel of Bird's perfectly captured character designs, to its slick homages to Gold- and Silver-Age comic books, 1960s spy movies, not to mention some of the best lines ever spoken in a Disney film: "I never look back, darling, it distracts from the now", it is a pitch perfect, nigh flawless film. A sequel not only seemed obvious, it seemed part of the process, with the film closing on a cliffhangers worthy of the best comic books. And so we waited. And waited. And waited. Until, finally, 14 years later, picking up much as it left off, we finally got The Incredibles 2, a sequel every bit as enjoyable, well written, and funny, as the original, if not, whisper it, moreso.

With Bob and Helen Parr, aliases Mr Incredible and Elastigirl, together with their children Dash, Violet, and Jack-Jack, having failed to stop credit-crashing tunnelling mastermind, The Underminer (well, except in that videogame, but who cares?), making his escape, so the superhero protection programme is shut down, the family are forced to live in a motel, and Bob and Helen seem forced to look for jobs. However, superhero fan and tycoon, Winston Deavor, offers a solution-he wants to see superheroes back in their rightful place, and believes that Elastigirl is the perfect spokeshero to rehabilitate superheroes. With Bob reluctantly looking after the children, so Helen, through a series of daring rescues, seeks to both aid the legalisation of supers once more and defeat the shadowy Screenslaver, whilst Bob has to get to grips with looking after his three children, including the newly empowered Jack-Jack.

If the first Incredibles was both a satire of superhero movies, and an exploration of absent fathers and male masculinity, with Mr Incredible attempting to recapture a youth where he was powerful, and not shackled to a desk and forced to be ordinary, nor, indeed, shackled to the responsibility of being a father, then the second film explores both masculinity and parenthood from a different angle. From being the breadwinner, Bob now acts as homemaker, having to deal with the trials and tribulation of acting as childminder, emotional, and educational support-whilst the film draws some comedy from an increasingly frazzled Bob having to deal with three children going through emotional, (and in the case of Jack Jack, physical and occasionally dimensional) changes, it also imbues the relationship between Bob and his children with a great deal of pathos.

The children, for their part, are given far more to do this film, with Violet's character arc with the boy she befriended in the last minutes of the first film given a greater, and surprisingly downbeat, focus, whilst Dash's hyperactive mischievous nature occasionally puts him at odds with his father. The relationship between Jack-Jack and his father, however, is some of the best writing in the film, with an excellently paced, and dialogueless scene with the youngest Parr child confronting a raccoon one of the funniest, pitch-perfect bits of slapstick in modern animation-it's easy to empathise with Bob in these scenes, and Bird clearly taps into parental fear of raising a child, superpowered or otherwise.

Helen, for her part, now takes centre stage, and in three excellent, kinetic setpieces, that not only use Elastagirl's flexibility, but the advancement of 14 years worth of animation software, to deliver some excellent action, she cements superheroes once more in the public imagination as a positive force-its easy to draw parallels between the way that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has explored accountability and superhero legality, and the growth of this particular franchise clearly has coloured the world of the Incredibles from time to time, although almost entirely positively. Nonetheless, the idea of a strong, intelligent superheroine being the spearhead of this rehabilitation is a much-needed redress to a balance that, historically, has been weighted in terms of male characters, with female characters reduced to either window-dressing or to damsels in distress, even if the film briefly touches upon this concept.

The Screenslaver, by contrast, in this retrofuturist world, is a surprisingly reactionary villain, yet it's easy to regard them as another form of adult fear about technology, and particularly technology used by children. Through mesmeric spirals, (thankfully toned down in the UK release to avoid the much publicised, and somewhat ignorantly unchecked effect upon sufferers of epilepsy), the Screenslaver quite literally uses screens to hypnotise and control the viewer. It's easy to draw parallels, as they do themselves, of the effect of social media and television, reducing people from talking, or going on holiday, or interacting to passive, hypnotised consumers, addicted to screens, powerless and passive, relying on superheroes, or indeed parents, to look after them.

Despite this rather modern villain, The Incredibles 2, like the first film, is a well-paced romp of an adventure, with superb animation, a nigh-perfect sense of comic timing, and a hell of a lot of heart; depicting a family, who, even without superpowers, are a tightknit and deeply caring group-this theme of family also emerges in the searingly beautiful short, Bao, that preceeds The Incredibles 2, which depicts an ageing, and lonely Chinese-Canadian mother, pining for her son, and attempting to care for a baozi (a form of dumpling), that comes to life; this is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful shorts Pixar have ever created, and, much like the feature film it accompanies, voices the fear of a parent about their relationship with their child, to truly beautiful effect.

The Incredibles 2, is, in a few words, a perfect continuation of the Parr family's adventures, toned, and tinged, and tempered by 14 years of thematic, cinematic, and technological innovation. It is a perfect sequel, just as incredible as the first film

Rating: Must See.