Superheroes, mega fun

It’s not a bird or a plane, it’s Brad Bird’s long-awaited sequel here at last

INCREDIBLES 2 (PG) ****

Dir: Brad Bird

Voices: Craig T Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L Jackson

125 minutes

TO make serious money in the movie business you cannot go far wrong investing in the silly stuff. Incredibles 2 has so far earned more than half a billion dollars at the US box office, the first animated picture to do so. At this rate, passing the billion dollars mark by the end of its worldwide roll-out should be child’s play.

Such numbers, and the sheer enjoyment to be had from Brad Bird’s new picture, makes you wonder why audiences have had to wait 14 years for a follow-up. Then again, Disney Pixar has been busy with other Oscar-winning movies, among them Bird’s Ratatouille. Moreover, he was caught up for a while in a little film franchise by the name of Mission: Impossible. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?

Bird starts his sequel where the 2004 picture left off. The Incredibles, ordinary bods by day, superheroes when required, are busy saving the world from another megalomaniac.

It is a messy old business catching supervillains, with buildings being damaged, streets torn up and a lot of other costly mayhem. With taxpayers fed-up footing the bill, the special scheme under which The Incredibles and other superheroes could live undercover in the suburbs is to be closed down. Mr Incredible (voiced by Craig T Nelson), his wife Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) and their three children are out in the cold, along with every other superhero, including Lucius Best/Frozone (Samuel L Jackson).

With their money running out, a job offer arrives just in time to save the Parr family. A brother and sister team of tech billionaires believe they have found a way to make superheroes great again and they want Elastigirl to be the face of the campaign. With the missus out at work, that leaves Mr Incredible to stay at home and look after Violet, Dash and baby Jack-Jack.

Bird’s screenplay mines every last drop of comedy from this role reversal set-up, and then digs deeper to find some more. There is a touch of reverse sexism at work here, suggesting that dads are no match for multi-tasking mums, but the jokes are so funny, not