The Incredibles 2: Teasing Us Past the Silliness
I have to admit, as an Incredibles fan, I became concerned when I first saw the teaser trailer, with Jack Jack burning off part of his father’s hair. Pixar hasn’t released teasers in years, and I do appreciate the throwback. On the surface, however, I worry that we are getting a silly sequel, as opposed to a grand adventure. Past experience has taught me that Pixar does much more than comedy, and I take refuge in that fact.
Then we got our first official trailer, released during the Superbowl. I did a lot of squinting. It seemed the sequel would ignore the comic spinoff and video game. We also would be getting a story set immediately after the first one, rather than giving us a time skip.
The Gist
From what we know, superheroes are still illegal in the Incredibles universe, despite Mr. Incredible, Frozone and Elastigirl coming out of retirement to save their city in the first film. It could be that the government officials have to work through the red tape and bureaucracy, which would be fairly plausible. In the meantime, a PR executive wants to hire Elastigirl to make superheroes look good in the public eye again. Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl agree, and Helen Parr leaves the homemaking world for heroics again. Her husband in civilian guise as Bob has to pick up the slack at home, and he finds rearing his kids is harder than helping insurance clients find loopholes. Even though we saw him feeding Jack-Jack and playing football with Dash, parenting requires much more than that. Edna Mode says as much.
The trailer appears silly, and we Bob Parr fans worry that his characterization had changed to the bumbling dad stereotype. The first movie was about him admitting that he wanted to relive his glory days but would put his family first. A man who can work out using cars as weights can certainly handle a super-powered baby. He raised Dash and Violet, after all.
With That Said
Pixar has done the bait-and-switch with trailers promising comedy, and hiding all the drama. Heck, the first Incredibles teaser trailer was about Bob trying to fit into his superhero outfit before dinner. A careless viewer may think that the film would have only cheap jokes about Bob’s weight and pop culture references. Instead, we got an animation masterpiece that discusses glory days, mandatory inequality, and how we long to do good while going through the motions.
I am predicting the following elements:
- The PR guy is evil
- Bob is actually highly competent once he figures out how to calm Jack Jack.
- Violet is totally dating her crush. Bob never gives her the talk because he trusts her and it embarrasses him.
- Edna steals the show.
In any case, I’m excited for what the sequel will bring. Brad Bird is full of surprises.