Fourteen years have passed since the animated superhero comedy The Incredibles burst, like Superman, into theaters. But when fans of the hit Pixar film sit down to the new sequel — about a family of suburban crime-fighters who must hide their abilities from a world that has outlawed “supers” — 2004 may feel like only yesterday. The delightfully restorative Incredibles 2 picks up precisely where the first film left off, with the arrival of a new villain, the Underminer, who arose from the earth in a giant tunnel-boring machine.
The first film ended with a knowing glance — between the costumed crusader Mr. Incredible (voice of Craig T. Nelson), his wife, Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), and their three kids — as well as a question: Would they continue to fight against those who would undermine truth, justice and the American way, or would they go back underground?
Incredibles 2 quickly sets about answering that question, in a way that will surprise no one, except to the degree that it incorporates currents in contemporary American culture that have developed in the intervening years. When Mr. Incredible, a.k.a. Bob Parr, shouts that he’ll try to keep the Underminer’s vehicle “away from the buildings,” it’s hard not think of the casual destruction in so many of today’s action-movie franchises. And when a team of brother-and-sister PR strategists (Bob Odenkirk and Catherine Keener) show up to help rehabilitate the lawless image of superheroes, they outfit Elastigirl with a police-style body camera, the better to document her good works.
Such au courant elements, coupled with the introduction of the film’s true villain — the mysterious Screenslaver, who turns his victims into mindless automatons via the mesmerizing power of computer screens — lend Incredibles 2 a whiff of topicality.
Returning writer-director Brad Bird has crafted a witty, engrossing and visually stunning adventure. There are several flawlessly rendered action set pieces, including one in which Elastigirl races to save a runaway monorail train. But none is more arresting than the hand-to-hand combat between the heroine and Screenslaver in his darkened lair, which appears to be lit by a garish strobe light.
Much of the film’s comedy comes courtesy of Bob and Helen’s youngest child, the toddler Jack-Jack, who reveals several new powers, all of which come to the fore in a scene in which he does hilarious battle with a backyard raccoon. Meanwhile, the other children, Violet (Sarah Vowell) and Dash (Huck Milner, replacing Spencer Fox), spend their time contending with adversaries of their own: Teenage boys and math, respectively.
Perhaps most intriguingly, Incredibles 2 is both pop-culture eye candy and a sly critique of it — albeit one delivered in the form of the bad guy, who rails against screens as a poor substitute for unfiltered life experience. I don’t need to tell you who wins here, but it’s refreshing to see a movie sequel that can question its own existence, even as it revels in it.