It’s true — mums are SUPER HEROES!
After a gap,of 14 years, The Incredibles blast back in a super-smart sequel that will delight kids AND their parents
The WORLD’S favourite suburban superhero family is back, 14 years after The Incredibles, with a hilarious and sharply observed action comedy in which elastigirl and her husband Mr Incredible temporarily swap roles.
It turns out that superheroism is easypeasy compared to the heroism of dayto-day parenting, as any mum queuing with her kids for a moment’s relief at the cinema this summer will tell you.
In Incredibles 2, Mrs Incredible a.k.a. elastigirl, is out and about using her stretchy powers to catch criminals and stop runaway trains, planes and automobiles. Meanwhile, Mr Incredible is left at home, holding the baby (Jack- Jack).
The shady Deavor Corporation, which has decided to try to rehabilitate the government-banned ‘supers’ in the public eye, believes people will be more sympathetic to a smart superheroine than a clumsy superhero who leaves a smouldering mess of collateral damage behind.
Mr Incredible mans up to singleparenting rather sweetly. Unfortunately, he has the strength of a hundred men . . . and the patience of a child.
he is utterly flummoxed by his superspeedy son Dash’s maths homework, and his daughter Violet’s huffs and highschool crushes. Unlike most teenagers, when Violet wants to be invisible, she can actually disappear.
PLUSJack- Jack seems to be developing strange new powers in tandem with tantrums. What can possibly go wrong? In the first movie, as far as the family knew, Jack- Jack was powerless, but the slapstick in the sequel shows him behaving like any capricious toddler, except with superpowers he can’t control.
One minute he has green laser eyes, the next he bursts into flames, then he’s a purple devil- child, and soon he’s going mano a mano with a racoon in the garden, which left the audience at my screening wheezing with laughter.
Once again, Mr Incredible is voiced by Craig T. nelson, and elastigirl is holly hunter, whose ironic rasp is perfect.
A new character, executive evelyn Deavor, is voiced by Catherine Keener and is worth watching carefully. Samuel L. Jackson is back as the Incredibles’ friend, Frozone, who can turn almost anything into an enormous blue iced slushie. Scary fashionista edna Mode (voiced by the film’s director, Brad Bird) returns to create a superhero romper suit for the newly empowered JackJack. Thanks to her GermanJapanese heritage, edna discovers that the music of Mozart keeps Jack- Jack on a happy, even keel. For a while.
This sequel also shows just how far CGI effects have come since the original, and the retro-futurist design will hold parents’ gaze while their kids roll with the action.
There’s nostalgia here for a generation which saw the first film as children, and Incredibles 2 has already broken American box office records for an animation.
Although set in the Sixties, there are modern references, as a baddie called Screenslaver takes control of all the other superheroes by sending hypnotic messages through tv screens or goggles which look like Google’s recent smart glasses.
Screenslaver’s voice intones: ‘You don’t talk, you watch talk shows. You don’t play games, you watch game shows.’ We are becoming slaves to our screens, and it must stop.
Luckily, or perhaps unluckily for future phone addicts, the incredible family comes together to fight as one, and there’s a zinging finale to a film which is as delightful as the original.
in SKYSCRAPeR, Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson does what he does best: leaping between a rock and a hard place — in this case a giant crane and a burning 240-storey tower.
Johnson’s leap of faith has been promoted in the film’s trailer, and the stunt is a classic, as riotously improbable as it is enjoyable.
While you nervously bite your fingernails, Johnson mostly dangles by his fingertips from great heights. Starring alongside the Rock is the Pearl, the highest building in the world, with tip-top fire and security measures, which Johnson goes to inspect in Hong Kong.
He brings his wife and kids along to China ‘to see the pandas’, a set-up which is conveniently doomed to go wrong, given their luxury accommodation on one of the Pearl’s highest floors.
Johnson plays Will Sawyer, an ex-FBi man who lost a leg in action, but the below-the-knee prosthesis doesn’t hold him back. He literally gets hopping mad when it comes to saving his family from the burning building and defeating a gang of arsonists with a secret mission.
talking of missions, Johnson’s fly- on- the- wall crawl up the Pearl is only aided by sticky duct tape on shoes and hands! it makes tom Cruise’s similar stunt up the Burj Khalifa building in mission: impossible — Ghost Protocol look positively wussy. DuCt
tape provides a recurring joke. As Johnson seals up a bloody gash in his shoulder he observes drily: ‘if you can’t fix a wound with duct tape, you’re not using enough duct tape.’
the action is gravity ( and sanity) defying, but the Rock is such a warm, convincing presence you forgive the silliness.
neve Campbell is his wife Sarah, a trilingual military surgeon, and Georgia (mcKenna Roberts) and Henry (noah Cottrell) are his cute twin kids who scream ‘Daddeeee!’ at key moments.
As we take an initial tour of the building, with its above- theclouds viewing platforms, and virtual reality hall of mirrors, you know these are about to be a perfect playground for the mayhem to come.
note of caution: despite the fantasy premise, this film has disturbing resonances following the Grenfell tragedy, and may be upsetting for younger children.