If You Know You Know | Review - Incredibles 2

Fourteen years is a mighty long time. It’s especially a long wait between one movie and its follow-up. Imagine my delight, as I settled in to watch Incredibles 2, to see a short video prepared by the movie’s main cast, both apologizing for the heavy delay and thanking the fans for their continued interest in the year 2018. I wouldn’t have thought to do it, but it makes perfect sense. People don’t go to the cinemas like they used to, and that goes extra for sequels. It’s a lot to live up to, even for a studio as legendary as Pixar Animation. With expectations so high, it only makes sense to do one thing – continue the Story.

The Story as we left it saw the defeat of supervillain and would-be sidekick Syndrome. Incredibles 2 picks up seconds after the previous film’s ending, as the Parr Family engages in battle with the Underminer. No spoilers here, as it happens in the first ten minutes, but if your initial impression of this bad guy was of him being a sight gag or punchline, surprise! It turns out the Underminer is extremely capable. Even though The Incredibles - with help from Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) - manage to disable his massive drill with no casualties, they are still detained immediately after the fight because…oh, yeah.

There’s been no time skip in the Incredibles Universe and vigilante superheroes are still very illegal. This on top of the damage to the town leads Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) and Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) to once again take up their civilian identities as Helen and Bob, along with their children: Violet (Sarah Vowell), Dash (Huck Milner) and Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile).

Incredibles was a movie extremely deft at depicting our average everyday problems in an entertaining way. Bob was out of a job, but secretly supported his family by getting back into shape and going on covert black ops superhero missions. The secret is out now, and the Parrs are again unemployed. Supers need to eat, too, so both parents mull the option of finding a day job. That is, before they are approached by a fast-talking CEO named Winston (Bob Odenkirk) along with his business partner and sister, Evelyn (Catherine Keener).

These are two new, interesting characters with a crazy idea: Make America Super Again. No, not like that. They want to change the laws against Supers by changing public perception, and they want to do that with the best hero of them all! Elastigirl.

Here is where the Story really starts. The movie hits you first with the obvious Mr. Mom tropes that come with the former breadwinner being sidelined, but this is a Brad Bird feature and there are levels. On Bob’s end: how does he juggle the needs of his three young kids, while supporting his wife and dealing with his latent insecurities after failing early on? On Helen’s end: how does she rectify engaging in very public illegal activity for the benefit of her family after telling them repeatedly that the Age of Supers was done?

That family dynamic is part of why the first installment of this series is so beloved. It was warm and tense and tender and volatile but, above all, it was real. As realistic a family unit as we’d seen in any feature, animated or not. Violet is entering adolescence, with all the pitfalls that brings. Dash is advancing into a higher grade and more difficult course work, struggling to keep pace (lol).

Jack-Jack gets his own paragraph; not just because he’s that good in the movie. Despite being a baby with no actual words spoken, he is a very dynamic character. His powers manifest in very odd ways. If he isn’t phasing through walls, he’s lighting himself on fire; if he isn’t using the Shadow Clone Jutsu, he’s teleporting; if he isn’t walking through another dimension, he’s transforming into a monster. There is plenty of subtext throughout this movie. A lot of it, Brad Bird couldn’t get too far into because The Mouse was watching, but as someone on the Spectrum, I do appreciate the development of Jack-Jack in this movie.

Jack-Jack was developed much better than his two older siblings. It might have been by design, or maybe they ran out of real estate in what is a pretty quick movie. Either way, it limited Dash and Violet – two characters that featured heavily in The Incredibles – to reacting to the plot as opposed to moving it along. They just didn’t have anything to do until the Final Act of the movie, when they help resolve the conflict.

Another critique on that note: the antagonist didn’t exactly pull their weight. Screenslaver wasn’t as lame as Evil Vision from Solo. Mark up for that, I guess. But yet again, we see my pet peeve of villains in film who just…do shit. I understand that in the realm of fiction, and even outside it, people react to things in extreme ways, which leads them to hurt the group of people that most reminds them of their pain. A good villain can do this, but they still need proper motive. Screenslaver’s motive threatens to fall apart if you think about it too long. And the big reveal of who is really behind the evil scheme? The only way you miss it is if you go to the bathroom for…I don’t know, thirty minutes?

This didn’t ruin the movie, of course. This is a film made with children in mind. Which, to be fair, made Helen and Evelyn’s two abrupt libertarian debates even more jarring than they would be in a more mature feature. In a movie that is otherwise perfectly paced, we literally stop cold for these conversations. I am, of course, a fan of constructive interaction between female characters on screen (there are several examples here) but Brad Bird, please. These kids don’t know about the free market or gig economy, and they don’t care. Tell the story.

Because when he does tell the Story, it’s excellent. Brad Bird is an amazing action director. Every sequence with Elastigirl is incredibly creative in both the use of her pliable abilities and the environments around her. She looks like a big deal, as do the other heroes, returning and new.

Part of why I love animation lies in the fact that Incredibles 2 even exists. For most other movies, a lay-off of fourteen years would be enough to scrap any plans of a sequel. People get older, people move on, schedules get full. It’s almost not worth the effort. In the world of animation, there is no such problem. If you can coordinate everyone’s Rolodex, you can pick up, quite literally, where you left off, no matter if it’s four months or fourteen years between productions. It’s not quite better than The Incredibles. With over a decade to wait though, this is an achievement and may well be remembered as a classic.

4 Stars out of 5

Spitting Out The Demons II

In the previous post this one takes its name from, I wrote briefly about my struggles with the Monster known as Depression. Specifically, I wrote about looking into the abyss and coming back out of it, and why I came back out of it. What I didn't touch upon was how I came up out of it, and to do that, it requires going back to a very dark place in my timeline.

It's a year and change removed from my short stint in Post-Secondary Education. I'm in my room back home, glaring at the ceiling, mouth agape. I am wasting away. I am a failure. I've just made the decision to die.

And if I'd had access to a weapon, I absolutely would be dead right now. There are several reasons why I'm still alive and writing this right now. Not the least is the thought of how broken my family would be to find me that way and the fear of my baby brother cursing my name everyday for the rest of his life. But in that specific moment, even those thoughts weren't enough to quell the screaming need in my bones for my pain and suffering to END. I would have. But then, I got a message.

This message was from someone that readers may know as Lunchbox but whom I know as Isaac. I had his number, of course. We'd known each other since High School, but the idea of reaching out to him had never even crossed my mind, because I wasn't trying to reach out to anyone. Not my mother, not my former teacher, no one. He called with a word, and then with a job. He didn't know what was wrong with me at the time, but he knew I wasn't well at all. What I needed was something to do and he supplied that without pause or question.

In the depths of my despair - when thoughts of self-harm were the loudest - he would talk for hours, on the job and off, until I could breathe easy and rest without the fear of regressing. I don't feel it's an exaggeration to say that Lunchbox saved my life. Without his intervention, who knows how low I would have gone. There may have been no returning for me. Since then, we've watched and reviewed countless movies together, and written some, too.

Given the recent and very sad news, I felt a responsibility to share this message with you, as well as say thank you to my best friend, which I don't do nearly enough.

Most people know the Suicide Prevention Hotline. Those who are suffering a Depression should know now that it shouldn't be suffered alone. By some miracle I survived alone for three years, but that isn't the point. The point is I should have never done it to begin with. I should have reached out, but instead, I suffered in silence and that was the biggest mistake I could have made. It almost cost me everything.

For anyone else, on the outside looking in, you may be confused or conflicted about just what you could possibly do to help someone who has abandoned their will to keep living. Simpy put: talk to them. Not about how they're feeling. Not about if they're happy today. Just talk. It can be about your favorite team or TV show. It can be about something stupid that doesn't matter at all. Anything you can do to reinstate a sense of normalcy in their lives can only help them.

And you must be patient. The healing process is a journey, not a destination. The Depressed person in your life will not make it easy. Because mental illness is not easy. In some cases, the person will never not be unhappy, but that doesn't mean they have to be unwell. You don't have to talk to them everyday, but be consistent. Be a positive outside force in their life. That way, when the internal forces threaten them with all-consuming darkness, they will see your light and move toward it. And when they do reach out, be sure you are waiting and ready to grab hold and pull them to the surface.

My friend saved my life, and I'll be thankful for it with every day I have left on this Earth.