The Infinite Rewatchability of Incredibles II

I haven't had a chance to get any reading done, and now that I have an idea of my talking time in Rome in June, I really need to crack some books. I have some books on my list (Milkman and Big Bang among others), but with Netflix combined with Cassius being sick as hell, and my plan for watching Incredibles II in a four hour binge with the first iteration did not happen.

I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to talk about Incredibles II. So, to start:

1. It's good. It's popcorn covered in melted cheese, summer blockbuster action movie packaged as a family adventure.

2. It's unabashedly feminist. The main good-guy is Elasti-Girl, the main bag-guy is a lady, and half of the movie is Mr. Incredible being ground down by domestic life as a house-dad.

3. The action set pieces are all Badass, with the capital B. It's almost like Pixar knows that animation can embrace the limitations of the computer in ways that live-action never can without appearing fully cartoony and fake.

4. One thing they really nail is the realization of the full potential of an elastic character. Holy cow, they get it right, and show how awesome that power could be.

I love the movie Coco, another Pixar entry on Netflix, and for a while it was Cassius's go-to for viewing. It's not so bad to have on in regular rotation, but it will always make me cry.

Incredibles II never really has that element: the emotionally-manipulative heart-string tug.

Plus, they really lean in to Jack-jack's powers.

I've gone back to watch clips of the first movie, and I'd have to say that the animation changes are jarring. Watching them back to back would have been amazing, mostly to see what was cutting edge in 2004, and then again in 2018.

But, was it so cutting edge in 2004? I remember that was the narrative, that Pixar had to do years of work trying to update their animation abilities to properly render believable human characters. But didn't Shrek come out in 1999? Not that Shrek has lots of human characters, but...maybe my memory needs to be updated.

Also, they use phrases like "Lets make supers legal again!" and similar taglines, that are so obviously nods to president cheeto-dust that it's more discomforting than funny. For me, anyway.

It's easy to watch, over and over. Mainly because of how cool Elasti-Girl is...