Incredibles II
Jun. 23rd, 2018 07:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraI have seen this film! Without saying anything too spoilery, thumbs up for superpowered action, sideways thumb for theme/script.
*With* saying spoilery things:
Whatever you might think about what the first Incredibles movie might or might not be saying about the relationship of powered people and society, it works as a movie because of a strong, simple storyline about Mr. Incredible rediscovering himself as part of the Incredibles - he thinks that what he needs to live his best life is just his super-persona, but actually it turns out it's for his whole family to come together/work together in their super-personas. Classic superteam story with the twist of them being a preexisting family.
In theory, IncII is more like Elasti-Girl's movie, and so ideally, this movie would center around some kind of character journey for her. Unfortunately, I think it's very hard for filmmakers to let adult women characters be as Act I-wrong as they'll let men characters, or maybe it's that they know audiences won't accept flawed women. Woman-centered superhero stories mostly seem to get around this with the initial "flaw" being underestimating/not understanding one's own power or its true nature - think of Wonder Woman, but also Jean Grey's arc in X-Men Apocalypse or, arguably, Korra - but this doesn't work so well with experienced veteran hero Elasti-Girl, so she's kind of left with nowhere to have an arc. Instead, the movie gestures in the direction of being a story about community, about the Incredibles realizing they're stronger when they can reach out to friends instead of being in isolation, but it doesn't really hammer that home. (Like, at the end, it's just the five of them again, there's nothing about calling anyone else in.) Or maybe it's a story about visibility - if the most important conversation thematically is the one between Helen and Evelyn at the party, then part of what makes Elasti-Girl good is that she does want recognition for her work, that she does want her persona's accomplishments to be known, while Screenslaver hides in the shadows/behind others. (And it's Elasti-Girl being out as a role model, and not community per se, that lets Void find her and support her. And Violet's frustration with Tony's memory erasure further reminds us that erasure is bad.) I did really like Void (although why is only one of six new supers a woman... it's the important one, but still, aaaaugh), and that we got a female villain.
But a lot of this movie just didn't work for me. The opening sequence with the Underminer *literally serves to undermine the rest of the movie*, by reminding us that in this world supers may actually not be net-positive (they really did make things so much worse to no end!), which, uh, lampshade points, I guess, but maybe you *didn't* want to literally undermine your movie? I was completely baffled by "Jack-Jack has powers!" being this big ongoing deal, when that was the climax of the previous movie (did everyone just forget??) and it was so much funnier in the original "Jack-Jack Attack" short. Giant eyeroll to "Bob learns to parent" and his cringey weirdness towards Tony in the car at the end. We needed so much less Bob and more arc for Violet and Dash - is it hard for them to cope with their sibling needing so much more of their parent's attention, maybe in parallel to how it's hard for Bob to cope with Elasti-Girl getting the spotlight? Maybe the movie ends with everyone in different costumes, instead of all matchy, to emphasize that they all get to be visible for themselves? Maybe they don't end on dumping Tony out of the car (which, gah, is such a weird ending, all "nobody else without powers can ever truly be part of the most important part of these people's lives") but on... Violet making sure he gets a good photo for the school paper or something, documentation is the opposite of erasure? I'm not sure exactly what I think this movie needed but I'm sure it didn't do it.
Content note for animal harm.
Oh, one more thing - the short was better than the movie. It's called "Bao", it made me cry, the character design was amazing, and, wow, it is one hell of a piece of animated storytelling. If you loved "Sanjay's Super Team" or "Inner Workings" it's a must-see.
*With* saying spoilery things:
Whatever you might think about what the first Incredibles movie might or might not be saying about the relationship of powered people and society, it works as a movie because of a strong, simple storyline about Mr. Incredible rediscovering himself as part of the Incredibles - he thinks that what he needs to live his best life is just his super-persona, but actually it turns out it's for his whole family to come together/work together in their super-personas. Classic superteam story with the twist of them being a preexisting family.
In theory, IncII is more like Elasti-Girl's movie, and so ideally, this movie would center around some kind of character journey for her. Unfortunately, I think it's very hard for filmmakers to let adult women characters be as Act I-wrong as they'll let men characters, or maybe it's that they know audiences won't accept flawed women. Woman-centered superhero stories mostly seem to get around this with the initial "flaw" being underestimating/not understanding one's own power or its true nature - think of Wonder Woman, but also Jean Grey's arc in X-Men Apocalypse or, arguably, Korra - but this doesn't work so well with experienced veteran hero Elasti-Girl, so she's kind of left with nowhere to have an arc. Instead, the movie gestures in the direction of being a story about community, about the Incredibles realizing they're stronger when they can reach out to friends instead of being in isolation, but it doesn't really hammer that home. (Like, at the end, it's just the five of them again, there's nothing about calling anyone else in.) Or maybe it's a story about visibility - if the most important conversation thematically is the one between Helen and Evelyn at the party, then part of what makes Elasti-Girl good is that she does want recognition for her work, that she does want her persona's accomplishments to be known, while Screenslaver hides in the shadows/behind others. (And it's Elasti-Girl being out as a role model, and not community per se, that lets Void find her and support her. And Violet's frustration with Tony's memory erasure further reminds us that erasure is bad.) I did really like Void (although why is only one of six new supers a woman... it's the important one, but still, aaaaugh), and that we got a female villain.
But a lot of this movie just didn't work for me. The opening sequence with the Underminer *literally serves to undermine the rest of the movie*, by reminding us that in this world supers may actually not be net-positive (they really did make things so much worse to no end!), which, uh, lampshade points, I guess, but maybe you *didn't* want to literally undermine your movie? I was completely baffled by "Jack-Jack has powers!" being this big ongoing deal, when that was the climax of the previous movie (did everyone just forget??) and it was so much funnier in the original "Jack-Jack Attack" short. Giant eyeroll to "Bob learns to parent" and his cringey weirdness towards Tony in the car at the end. We needed so much less Bob and more arc for Violet and Dash - is it hard for them to cope with their sibling needing so much more of their parent's attention, maybe in parallel to how it's hard for Bob to cope with Elasti-Girl getting the spotlight? Maybe the movie ends with everyone in different costumes, instead of all matchy, to emphasize that they all get to be visible for themselves? Maybe they don't end on dumping Tony out of the car (which, gah, is such a weird ending, all "nobody else without powers can ever truly be part of the most important part of these people's lives") but on... Violet making sure he gets a good photo for the school paper or something, documentation is the opposite of erasure? I'm not sure exactly what I think this movie needed but I'm sure it didn't do it.
Content note for animal harm.
Oh, one more thing - the short was better than the movie. It's called "Bao", it made me cry, the character design was amazing, and, wow, it is one hell of a piece of animated storytelling. If you loved "Sanjay's Super Team" or "Inner Workings" it's a must-see.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-24 05:42 am (UTC)