Critic Reviews

While it’s great fun to watch the Incredibles/Parrs zipping around saving the world (with help from their preternaturally cool pal Lucius/Frozone, voiced with gusto by Samuel L. Jackson), Incredibles 2 gets its heart by being a sweet family story.

It would have been a relief if, 14 years later, Incredibles 2 had simply met expectations. Instead, it exceeds them.

It’s been a long time coming for Incredibles 2, but the punchline is worth the setup.

Brad Bird’s The Incredibles 2 is, much like its predecessor, delightful as an animated feature but really, really delightful as a superhero picture. It’s proof that someone (not anyone, mainly Bird) can make a Marvel-type movie that’s fleet and shapely, with action sequences rich in style rather than tumult.

Incredibles 2 is a movie that could have been made redundant by time. Instead, it lightens the mood in a world gone super-serious.

The good news is that this continuation is a similarly rousing and savvy adventure that energetically serves up more of what we love — from the sleek retro-futurist designs to the ticklishly severe Eurasian super-clothier Edna Mode — and yet wisely, wittily, reverses the first film’s accommodating traditionalism to make for an even richer, funnier portrait of its tight and in-tights family.

Brad Bird’s strong script and direction elevate this animated adventure to new heights. Instead of trying to copy or parody the superhero films of the past 14 years, Incredibles 2 embraces what made its first outing so memorable: The Parr family and their willingness to work together in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

Incredibles 2 hardly shakes the foundations of what a superhero movie should be, but it’s a raucous crowd-pleaser that serves up enough mouthwateringly beautiful eye candy to delight kids and grownups alike.

By comparison, the long-awaited The Incredibles 2 is inescapably messier throughout. The villain and scheme are not quite as compelling, and the choreography of character and location—another hallmark of the first film—is a perceptible degree sloppier. Nonetheless, it feels great to be back.

It feels like a movie that could have easily come out in 2006 as opposed to now, which is what makes Incredibles 2 so fun. It doesn’t belong to a time, so ten years from now both of these installments will just seem like they’ve always just kind of been here. Incredibles 2 will now take its rightful place alongside the first film in the “family canon.”