Incredibles 2

Legendary animation studio Pixar is back along with Brad Bird to bring us the much-awaited sequel to the beloved Incredibles. Back in 2004, The Incredibles was a great movie about a superhero family and the struggle to live in a world where being a superhero is illegal. This sequel picks up instantly after the first and picks continues the story of the conflict between the government and heroes. The world still finds heroes to be dangerous and destructive to society, but one man wants to change all that and bring heroes out of hiding. Winston Deavor is a super-rich businessman who along with his tech-savvy sister want to elect the help of Elastigirl to change the way the world views heroes. This leaves Mr. Incredible to stay at home and watch the kids, something he was never used to. 

For me, Pixar sequels seem to be hit or miss and rarely better than the original. Honestly, the only ones that HAVE been better than the original are the Toy Story movies. Incredibles 2 was one of the only Pixar sequels that I was actually looking forward to because it was the one that made the most sense to continue. There was more potential for stories, growing characters, new heroes and villains, and conflicts. 

The biggest improvement here is, of course, the animation since it's been over a decade. You're getting that Pixar quality animation here with great movement, effects, environments, textures, details and so much more. The one thing you can always bet when you watch a new Pixar movie is that the visuals are going to be the best for computer animation, and this is no different. The movie also features a great musical score, much like the first, that elevates every scene. I'm always impressed by how much detail is put into every Pixar movie, but that's what makes them the best animation studio in my opinion. Really, Pixar almost never fails in the visuals and music department and it's usually in the story and writing that it can sometimes fail. 

So how is the story? Well, I thought it was almost as good as the first one. It's hard not to compare it to the original, but I think that's okay to do since this is a sequel... one that's more than a decade after it's predecessor. As I said before the story takes place immediately after the first one and does a good job of adding new stakes and building the characters a little more. The amazing voice cast returns with some new additions that all work very well and feel like they haven't lost a beat. The story itself is very predictable and I think most people will know exactly what's going to happen pretty early on in the movie. Of course, this is a movie that's aimed at kids, so they probably won't be able to predict it like older audiences will. Still, even being predictable, it's still a really fun movie to watch full of great action scenes and good family comedy. The villain in the movie is nowhere near as compelling as Syndrome from the first movie, but still has an understandable motive for doing evil things. The emotional moments also don't hit as hard in this movie, but there are still some moments that hit at least. 

Overall this was a worthy sequel to the great original movie. It didn't feel forced or out of place but instead felt like a welcome return. It was great to see the return of great characters and to see them in a new light thanks to all the advancements in animation technology over the last decade. It does a good job at playing off of the world created in the first movie and further building on it. While it falls short of the original, it's not by much and it's one of the best Pixar sequels made at this point. If you loved/liked the first then you'll definitely enjoy this one.

Overall Grade: B+

On a side note, they showed the new Wreck-it Ralph trailer before the movie. Am I wrong in thinking that it looks like it's going to be pretty bad? Hopefully, it's just a bad trailer...