In 2018, it’s openly weird to be watching a movie about a father of three who’s teeth-grindingly jealous about his wife’s job, and who has to learn how to handle basic parental tasks like talking to his kids about their problems. Mom, a clumsy John Hughes-written fish-out-of-water comedy where wife Teri Garr heads to work, while dad Michael Keaton clumsily stays home and tries to parent the kids. But the story also feels a bit too much like 1983’s Mr. Given the sleek 1960s retro-future of the Incredibles world, that primary plot feels like a nod to the era where women entered the workforce en masse, dealing with condescension and revulsion from male counterparts as they tried to build careers. Bob seethes at being held back and left out, but he reluctantly attempts to parent his kids while his wife heads to work. Incredible is too clumsy and careless as a hero: the Deavors want Elastigirl as their poster girl, given her far more surgical and studied form of heroism. But a pair of wildly rich, helpful siblings, Winston (Bob Odenkirk) and Evelyn Deavor (Catherine Keener) offer the Parrs an out in the form of a PR campaign that they say will help restore superheroes’ reputation and legal standing. They’re already unemployed due to events in The Incredibles, and now they no longer have government help in covering up their activities. But the moment of satisfaction and family unity that ended The Incredibles rapidly disintegrates, and shortly after the fight, Bob and Helen learn that a previous government program to support and help hide former superheroes has been canceled.
Incredibles 2 opens just seconds later, continuing the battle with the Underminer. The film ends with the family about to square off against a mole-like, tunneling supervillain who calls himself the Underminer. By the end of the film, the two older kids have learned to embrace their powers, Helen has reluctantly, then enthusiastically embraced their return to derring-do, and Jack-Jack has started exhibiting a wide range of powers of his own. But the invitation turns out to be a trap that pulls his whole family into a fight against a hidden villain. The first movie focuses on Bob’s misery at being stuck with an office job and his excitement at being offered a backdoor route back into thrilling superhero fights and a glam hero lifestyle. Incredible and Elastigirl when they were younger, but since being outlawed, they’ve gone underground and had three kids: Violet (Sarah Vowell), Dash (Spencer Fox in Incredibles, Huck Milner in Incredibles 2), and baby Jack-Jack. Nelson and Holly Hunter) used to be big-time superheroes Mr. (In the sequel, one agent of the law points out that banks are insured and that it’s easier to cleanly, legally deal with a villain robbing one than to deal with the chaos left behind by a “helpful” hero.) Married couple Bob and Helen Parr (Craig T. The Incredibles introduced a world where superheroes and villains exist, but heroes have been outlawed due to the incredible property damage they tend to cause when saving the day. The same characters are running through some of the same emotions but with much less of a sense of weight and impact. Incredibles 2 is a lighter and more incident-packed adventure. It feels like a conscious step back from Bird’s original Incredibles, which was openly about a middle-age crisis, a slowly disintegrating marriage, and two kids coming to terms with their superpowers. Incredibles 2, Brad Bird’s sequel to his 2004 superhero adventure The Incredibles, is a case in point: Bird describes it as “just a popcorn film,” a fun action movie without elaborate themes or painful feelings. The Pixar “brain trust” - a core group of insiders who push the studio’s chosen writers and directors toward high-quality and immense risks - has a knack for emotional insight and a track record that speaks for the value of pushing the limits of what animation can do, visually and narratively.īut occasionally, Pixar films jump back from those heavy emotional burdens and just take their characters on a big adventure.
Pixar films like Finding Nemo, Up, Toy Story 3, and Inside Out deal directly with death and other very personal, deeply felt losses, from letting go of childhood to letting go of the possibility of motherhood.
But past a certain point in its history, Pixar became known above everything else for its willingness to explore emotional depths its contemporaries wouldn’t touch. Pixar Animation Studios has built its reputation on a lot of elements: computer animation that was miles ahead of the competition for more than 15 years, memorable humor and memorable characters, and stories that are accessible to children but sophisticated enough to keep adults engaged.