INSIDE JOKES ABOUND IN FOLLOW-UP

FOURTEEN long years have passed since the animated superhero comedy The Incredibles burst, like Superman, into theatres.

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, in their own way, go back underground?

Incredibles 2 immediately 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 – both in movies and in the news – 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 that is countenanced by so many of today’s action-movie franchises, for which collateral damage seems almost to have become a smirking, inside joke. And when a team of brotherand-sister PR strategists (Bob Odenkirk and Catherine

Keener) show up to offer help rehabilitating the lawless image of superheroes, they outfit Elastigirl with a police-style body camera, the better to document the true nature of her good works.

Such au courant elements, coupled with the introduction of the film’s true villain – a mysterious entity called the Screenslaver, who turns his victims into mindless automatons via the mesmerizing power of computer screens – lend Incredibles 2 just a whiff of topicality.

Much of the film’s comedy comes courtesy of Bob and Helen’s youngest child, the toddler Jack-jack, who in this instalment reveals himself to possess several new powers. Meanwhile, the family’s other children, Violet (Sarah Vowell) and Dash (Huck Milner, replacing Spencer Fox), spend their time contending with adversaries of their own: Teenage boys and maths, respectively.

It’s refreshing to see a movie sequel that can question its own existence, even as it revels in it.

It’s been a long time coming for Incredibles 2, but the punchline is worth the set-up. – Washington Post