Incredibles 2 Undermines The Incredibles and Itself - An In-Depth Movie Opinion

Update: My 3-week deadline passed without a new video, but I didn't quit! The next video needs more time to cook. It's not a 30-minute review anymore. I've listened to the feedback, and I'm making another LONG, detailed video. In fact, it's an "In-Depth" topic, inspired by one of the comments on this video: Why I Think The Incredibles Is "Slow In Places." The script is big. It's going to take quite a few more weeks to make the video. I'm rusty after 4 years. I'll keep working on it, slow and steady. Weekly updates can be found on my Community Posts page. Thank you all for giving this Incredibles 2 video a chance! I'm reading the feedback, including the negative comments, which I'll consider. Take care, -AEmovieguy

all the characters from the first movie look like they’re from the 60s but all the new characters look like they’re from the 2010s.

Not giving Helen any internal conflict or further complexity is not empowering her but rather making her into a character that most women will find it hard to relate to. It’s like the writers got so lost in trying to make her a “girlboss” that they forgot to make her a person.

That one line: “I’m not- I Can’t LOSE YOU again… I’m not… Strong enough.” That gets me, that gives me goosebumps, that tears me up a little. Can you imagine the utter anguish that swallowed him when he thought his family died on their way to save him? The thoughts running through his head as he relived every moment of his selfishness, his ambition, his pride, killed the people he loves most? People don’t just go through something like that only to go back to shallow egotistical ways three months later, he ripped himself apart inside out mentally and emotionally for hours, hanging in place with nothing to think about but the fact that he ruined everything, killed his wife, and his children for som paltry fun. That makes me kinda despise this movie tbh.

Bob did work for an insurance company in the first movie. His job was literally to deny claims illegally and scam people outta using the insurance. The old lady from the start literally had full coverage and insuracare was refusing to pay out unless they were sued, which they knew she couldn't due to being on a fixed income, more than willing to let a nice old lady to go homeless to increase their bottom line. Bob literally had to tell her a work around to get what she paid for! I doubt Disney would have let Incredibles 2 expose the fact that ya gotta sue insurance companies 9/10 if ya wanna get what ya paid for. It's one if Disney's more profitable "investments" after all!

Can we please talk about the whacky ass superhero designs? They’re incredibly distracting and DONT belong. In the first movie when Mr incridble is going through the supers eliminated by syndrome NONE of them look wacky or incredibly disproportionate. Not to mention, with an appearance like that, HOW DO YOU HAVE A SECRET IDENTITY???? If you look at the behind the scenes of the first movie you can clearly see a certain art direction or feel the movie was aiming for. It’s gone in this one.

Incredibles 2 is the kind of plot you would expect from a sitcom where they need to keep ending back where they begin. Not a movie with a journey or purpose.

They should have had a scene where Helen returns from a rather rough fight, and she calls Bob to check in. Bob tells her about all the little status updates and while she is proud of her children, she is visibly sad because she is missing out on her family. Something like this to signal conflict, though in all honestly I would really restructure the plot of this movie.

The goggles should have been part of Helen's new suit so that it wasn't obvious to Bob (or shouldn't have been obvious) that she was being mind controlled. They could justify it "It's to look cool. You got the motorcycle. Now you get goggles to go with it. Marketing." And, then nothing happens with them for a while to lower our guard about them. Then Elastagirl finds out that Evil Endeavor is a bad guy and she turns them on.

Incredibles 2 was SIX YEARS AGO???!

I hate how these sequels just take the roughest, barest sketch of characterization and think they can rebuild every success of the original.

The second I heard her name was Evelyn Dever, I chuckled to myself and said "Heh, evil endeavor". The fact that her name also sounds like "a villain" eluded me. This movie was such a disappointment. The original Incredibles is my favorite Pixar movie, and this... Gosh, this movie makes me sad for what could and should have been.

Helen got the modern Hollywood treatment. They're afraid of individual character flaws being taken as a dig at all women in a way that they simply aren't for male characters.

I never realized how Helen was SCREAMING out their actual names in public during the Underminer fight omg. Anybody could’ve heard that, and many probably did, and put two and two together. That could’ve been a good time to see what their actual hero names would’ve been too! Maybe Helen starts saying “Vi-“ and then remembers she has to use their hero names to protect them.

Something I’ve never seen anyone really talk about is the Parr’s housing situation at the beginning of the movie. Their old house exploded at the end of the first movie. That was canonically 3 months ago. Where have they been living since then? It doesn’t seem like they’ve been living in the motel for that whole time, but even if so why are Bob & Helen only NOW having the “maybe one of us should get another job” conversation? Did the movie just forget that the Underminer didn’t show up the day after Syndrome did?

I feel like it would be interesting if they had bobs sudden regression be caused by overstimulation, something a lot of single moms talk about being a huge struggle. They could go into the idea that bob has no support system, and that hellen faced similar issues when the kids were younger but had people to help her through it. He could then struggle with not wanting to burden his wife and feeling like hes not strong enough to protect his family in a whole new way. You could also pull gender biases into it with bob not knowing helen struggled. Maybe she hid it from him, went to friends so as not to trust him. Then maybe one of the kids call helen, or frozone or his wife call her, and she comes home and bob is floored because its like she fixes everything. And they get to communicate that no its not just him failing, she knows what to do because she struggled the same way.

I think the biggest thing one could do to improve Incredibles II is simply to swap how Bob and Helen feel about their roles. Bob gladly takes on raising the kids in order to make up for his disillusionment with urban life from the first film; Helen is conflicted about helping improve public/Super relations because it’s taking away from her family time. Doesn’t fix every problem (we’d need a better villain and Bob doesn’t need to be so thoroughly nerfed to make the film work), but it starts with the biggest problem I2 has (characterization).

Even after many rewatches of this movie, I still have absolutely no idea how that little girl got that sign. Why did they make a little girl with the sign?! It makes literally no sense! Did Evelyn brainwash someone, have them walk up to this little girl and get her to hold this sign? Where are this girl's parents??

Incredibles 2 isn't canon.

It feels like they just wanted to retell the first movie but worse.