REVIEW: Aquaman

As I write this Review, James Wan's Aquaman has just blown past the $1 billion mark at the international box office. Aquaman. Even as a longtime fan of the comics, I can't exactly say I saw this coming. The DCEU has been chugging by on a wing and a prayer for years now, and while Wonder Woman earned the franchise enough good will to hold onto a glimmer of hope that the worst had long since passed, 2017's utterly abysmal Justice League tanked both critically and financially. Rumors swirled about Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill dropping out of the franchise for good, the upcoming Scorsese-produced Joker movie seemed to indicate that WB was pursuing other options, and we all had to wonder if Aquaman was merely a formality at this point; the last gasps of a dead franchise, pumped into theaters for no reason beyond recouping losses. I was excited to see one of my favorite superheroes (yes, seriously) portrayed on the big screen, but even I was apprehensive of what awaited me. One mind-numbingly long screening later and I found myself feeling something I seldom feel about many movies. Aquaman is by no means what I would call a "good" movie, and yet I had an absolute blast with it. It's flawed, bloated, and verges on being totally braindead at times, but there are also elements of this movie that I feel exemplify exactly what WB should aim to accomplish with future entries in the DCEU.

Set after the events of Justice League (let's not pretend that really matters, since the characters certainly don't), we find that Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) has taken to superhero-ing like a fish to water, known throughout the seven seas (and his quiet hometown of Amnesty Bay) as the Aquaman. The son of a lighthouse keeper (Temuera Morrison) and the renegade Queen of Atlantis (Nicole Kidman), Curry has been reluctant to confront the wetter side of his heritage, believing the xenophobic Atlanteans to be responsible for the death of his mother. This all changes, however, after he is confronted by Princess Mera (Amber Heard, rocking one of the worst wigs this side of Spirit Halloween), who informs Arthur that his half-brother, King Orm (Patrick Wilson) intends to unite the seven undersea kingdoms and march on the surface world, establishing Atlantis' dominion over the entire planet. With the help of his mentor, Vulko (Willem Dafoe), Arthur joins Mera to locate the lost trident of King Atlan, usurp his brother's throne, and take his rightful place as the one true king of Atlantis.

Right off the bat, the movie suffers from a screenplay that toes the line between harmlessly campy and comically bad (which feels like something of a motif for 2018). While I was eventually able to adjust to the movie's cheese-factor, it doesn't change the fact that some of these lines feel like they were meant to be placeholders. The cast all do their best with what they've been given, but no actor could make a gem like "Your fish-ship has been marinating in chum-butter, I'm not coming out smelling like swamp butt" sound good. It doesn't help that we're stuck with this level of dialog for, as I mentioned, well over two hours. The plot essentially condenses the first three volumes of Geoff Johns' New52 run into a single story (which makes sense, seeing as how he has a story credit alongside James Wan and screenwriter Will Beall), so things naturally get more than a little crowded. You get the impression that WB assumed this would be their only shot at making an Aquaman movie, so very little is saved for the sequel. They put all their chips on the table and it more than paid off, so while this definitely doesn't feel like a bland corporate product, it definitely gets rather clunky here and there (especially during the first act). We get Arthur meeting Mera, contesting Ocean Master for the throne, reclaiming the lost trident of Atlan, and fighting Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), all in one movie. As a result, despite a reasonably brisk pace, the entire thing suffers from a distinct feeling of bloat. While I didn't necessarily dislike any of these storylines, I definitely would have been fine with cutting one or more in favor of saving it for the sequel; the end result is very much a concentrated dose of Aquaman, but it may prove a little too dense for anyone who isn't already a fan of the comics.

Aside from that, we have our two main leads played by Jason Momoa and Amber Heard. In my Review of Justice League, I said that they were by far the weakest links in the main cast, and the same holds true here. Don't get me wrong, they're both extraordinarily good-looking people with charisma to spare, but their relationship lacks chemistry (especially compared to, say, Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor) and their emotional range left me wanting, to say the least. The villains definitely steal the show, with Wilson and Abdul-Mateen cranking it up to 11 as Ocean Master and Black Manta. The cornball script and bombastic presentation only does these two favors, as we're treated to two separate scenes where our antagonists look right at the camera and proclaim, "CALL ME... *insert supervillain name here*!"; if that doesn't sound like the kind of thing you could get into, then I'd recommend giving the whole affair a pass right here and now. These are two comic book villains who make up for their apparent lack of depth with sheer screen presence, exemplifying just what makes James Wan's approach to this material stick the landing, despite its many flaws. Whereas other films may hesitate to embrace the over-the-top nature of adapting a superhero story to the big screen, Aquaman pulls its absurd, pulpy roots into a crushing bear-hug, splashing hefty doses of color and melodrama across the screen to remarkably fun effect.

I've noticed that many big-screen comic book adaptations (especially those found in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) are often more than a little hesitant to fully commit to the levels of absurdity found within the pages of its source material, using self-aware humor as a buffer to help sell the audience on something so seemingly childish. That isn't to say that I need my superhero movies to be dour and moody, there are definitely good ways to blend humor and intimate character drama, but there are definitely bad ways to go about it as well. If the film is constantly winking to me about how goofy the movie I'm watching is, it's only going to hurt itself in the long run. If the characters in the film don't take the situation, threat, or villain seriously, how can I, as the viewer, be expected to? This is where Aquaman uses its cheesy tone to its advantage; while this is a supremely weird, goofy movie with lots of fantastical locales and impractical costumes, the universe of the film takes itself entirely seriously. This is something the DCEU has attempted in the past, to disastrous results. Fortunately, James Wan is a talented enough filmmaker to not confuse a film taking itself seriously with being a joyless, dour slog.

This is a film that is fiercely committed to playing its role as a superhero movie, and there is zero cynicism to be found in how it approaches such a task. The tone very heavily reminds me of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films; movies that were very intentionally made to be exaggerated, stylized, sometimes downright cartoonish action romps, yet never felt the need to justify that level of silliness to the audience by pretending it was "ironic" or "deconstructive". Aquaman wears its heart firmly on its sleeve, which I find somewhat refreshing in today's contemporary superhero scene. Its goal isn't to reinvent the wheel or get audiences to think Aquaman is a "realistic" portrayal of a superhero. The mission statement here is, without question, to entertain. And if I'm judging a film purely on how well it accomplishes the goals it has set for itself, I have no choice but to give Aquaman full marks. It's not very subtle or nuanced, there's a lot of terrible acting and dialog, and it's not at all conceptually ambitious in terms of displaying what a superhero movie can be in this modern age. But I was fiercely entertained, thanks very much in part to James Wan's talents as a director. 

There are countless other films that try to coast by on sheer spectacle and fail; Justice League is a prime example. For as messy and unrefined as aspects of Aquaman are, it at the very least feels like someone's vision, rather than a sanitized product that's been focus-tested and homogenized in an attempt to appeal to as many paying demographics as possible. And that's not to say that giving a director free reign to exercise their vision is a one-way ticket to success either; films like Batman V Superman and The Last Jedi prove that a filmmaker needs to understand and respect the subject they're working with in order to create something that, at the end of the day, isn't a frustrating chore to sit down and watch. This is something Aquaman definitely gets right, mixing goofball superhero aesthetics and melodrama with genuinely engaging direction and cinematography. It's not an exaggeration to say that the majority of this film takes place on a green screen, so when I'm praising the effects, you know it's something special. Atlantis feels like a fully realized world with countless depths worth exploring (in contrast to Black Panther's Wakanda, which felt like three soundstages and a grassy field) and there are loads of imaginative creature designs which give way to some truly spectacularly realized action setpieces (especially in the latter half of the film). There's a sequence later on in the second act involving the Trench, an ancient race of monstrous fish-people, that really exhibits Wan's talent as a horror filmmaker. Although clips from this scene made it into several of the trailers, they really don't do the sequence justice; it's clear from a quick visual gag in the beginning that he's a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, and this Trench sequence just makes me wonder how long I'm going to have to wait for an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth with James Wan in the director's chair.

While it's hardly what I'd call a groundbreaking success in the superhero genre, I simply can't hide the amount of fun I had with Aquaman. It's a movie with a myriad of problems holding it back from true greatness, yet it managed to keep me thoroughly entertained throughout its somewhat bloated runtime. There are glaring issues with the script, story, and performances, but there's such a distinct lack of cynicism here that I can't bring myself to hate it. This isn't a bad movie in the same way something like Batman V Superman or the Michael Bay Transformers films are, where the lack of quality comes off as insulting to the viewer. This is more akin to something like The Fate of the Furious, where you get the sense that everyone on set knew exactly what they were making; a bombastic, cartoonish spectacle that plays all of its candy-colored melodrama 100% straight. I caught myself groaning at the downright embarrassing dialog in the beginning, but then Black Manta shot Aquaman with an electric harpoon and said "I'm gonna gut you like the fish you are" and I realized this movie and I were, in a way, very much on the same page in regards to what an Aquaman film should be. The costumes are fantastic, the effects are impressive, and the last thirty minutes are pure visual opium. It's silly, it's stupid, and I had an absolute blast with it. If you're not a fan of superhero comics or prefer your cape stories to be a bit more on the low-key and serious side, there's little here that would be worth your time. But if you're a fan of the comics, nostalgic for a time when superheroes didn't have to be reimagined to make sense in the real world, Aquaman will definitely quench your thirst.

REVIEW: The Predator

There are a few notable trends that I keep noticing in modern movies that I'd like to talk about for just a bit. The first (and most irritating) is Hollywood's obnoxious over-reliance on 80's nostalgia. G.I. Joe, Transformers, Ninja Turtles, Robocop, Terminator, Thundercats, Ghostbusters; if it existed in the 1980's, you're probably gonna see its fetid corpse unearthed and propped up by a hack studio to make a quick buck. We've also witnessed the rise of the soft-reboot; a film that is, for all intents and purposes, a remake/reboot of a classic film franchise, except it's stated to take place in the main series continuity, making it a sequel, and thus okay. I feel like the most notable of these is The Force Awakens, but it's hardly a rarity nowadays, especially for big-budget franchises with a lot of brand recognition. We've also been seeing a lot of movies get utterly destroyed through reshoots. Normally, reshoots are a relatively innocuous practice, but it feels like as of late, more and more big-budget projects are suffering the slings of studio interference, producing an end result that turns out worse than anyone could have possibly predicted. The reason I choose to mention all of these phenomena is that Shane Black's The Predator manages to be a sterling example of all three with shockingly little effort.

The film opens as one would expect a Predator film to, with a spaceship hurtling towards Earth. After crash-landing in the South American jungle, everyone's favorite human-hunting space monster has a run-in with an Army Ranger by the name of Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook). Battered from the crash, the Predator (Brian A. Prince) is actually incapacitated by the hard-boiled sniper, who makes off with the creature's mask and wrist gauntlet. Sensing that he's seen something he wasn't meant to have seen, Quinn mails the alien tech back home before he's taken into custody by government agents. Naturally, the government has captured the Predator as well, who inevitably escapes and sets out in search of his stolen gear (which has since ended up in the hands of McKenna's autistic son, Rory, played by Jacob Tremblay). With the help of a renegade biologist (Olivia Munn) and a ragtag gang of disabled veterans, it's up to Quinn to keep his son out of the way of an interplanetary blood war, all while avoiding the shadowy government agents who want him disappeared. Despite how exciting that may sound, I assure you large chunks of this movie are dull as all get-out.

When this movie was first announced, I was understandably optimistic. Shane Black is a solid director (who also starred in/wrote parts of the original Predator), and a natural choice to helm the next entry in the franchise (redundant title notwithstanding). Predator is one of those rare films like Robocop that works both ironically and unironically well; it's the movie that made Arnold Schwarzenegger an action superstar, and it's chock-full of all the hilariously dated tropes and clichés one would expect from such a film. At the same time, it executes its deceptively simple premise startlingly well, balancing both action and suspense until things reach a head at the surprisingly small-scale climax. It's got all the excess that 80's action movies are lauded for to this day, but it also understands and appreciates the effect some quieter, more intimate moments can have when establishing atmosphere and tone. If they wanted to have a soft reboot of Predator that took itself seriously for the most part, they could certainly do so and have it work out nicely; 2010's Predators is living proof of this.

Alternatively, if Shane Black wanted to turn the whole thing into an utter farce, lampooning the various action tropes that the original Predator helped establish, I could see that working out as well; plenty of relatively serious films have successfully made the transition to more comedic fare as time's gone on (the most notable example that comes to mind being the Evil Dead trilogy). Black has a penchant for snappy dialog, and his role as Hawkins in the original film provided much of the early comedic relief. This appears to be the approach that The Predator is going for, but unfortunately the whole thing runs into a critical error; it's not particularly funny. There's a few one-liners that got a sensible chuckle out of me, and the gore has the tendency to reach Monty Python and the Holy Grail levels of cheap, slapstick-y excess, but I doubt anyone would describe The Predator as a rollicking good time (unless a character saying "get to da choppa" before escaping on a bunch of stolen motorcycles is your idea of clever writing). Really, the script here is so bad that it gives Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom a run for its money, with such winners as "Motherf-cker hacked our vehicles" and "F-ck me in the face with an aardvark".

In the film's defense, the first act is more or less exactly what I wanted it to be; it's by no means groundbreaking, but it's a reasonably fun monster movie with some solid action (in particular, the sequence in which the Predator escapes from a government lab). But everything goes downhill quickly soon after that scene, up until the point that our bigger, badder, entirely CGI rival Predator shows up. After this new monster is introduced, the entire film breaks and goes down the drain, devoid of any intellect or charm it may have possessed beforehand. Before that point, the lackluster performances, groan-worthy one-liners, and bland, forgettable characters were just sort of there, but it was around this time that it all compounded and started actively making the movie worse, dragging it down into the realm of pure trash. From what we've learned, apparently the entire third-act of the movie was rebuilt from the ground up at the behest of 20th Century Fox, so it seems as though this is another film that may have had the potential to actually be something not terrible before a bunch of studio suits decided to stick their slimy paws all over it. Honestly, I'd have happily accepted a Predator movie that was "just okay", but instead got something that appears to put active effort into being terrible. And that's not even touching the way The Predator attempts to tackle such weighty topics as mental illness and climate change.

There was a clear attempt at having some subtext, pitting a team of mentally-disturbed veterans and a young child with Asperger's up against an alien menace who has modified his own DNA to become a genetically-perfect being. Truth be told, giving the main group of heroes in an action/slasher flick a host of neuroses and disorders to deal with in addition to the impending extraterrestrial threat is a pretty fascinating idea that could really result in something spectacular if handled properly by a talented filmmaker (like, say, Shane Black). Instead what we get is a series of jokes where the punchline is "the guy with Tourette's said something profane" and a kid who can use the power of autism to operate alien technology as if he were R2-D2. The disorders in this movie are treated as either a punchline or a plot convenience; I'm not even going to harangue The Predator for how potentially offensive such a portrayal is, that's just lazy writing. I'm still struggling to wrap my head around how this even turned out so bad; this is a movie written by Shane Black and Fred Dekker. These are the guys who gave us The Monster Squad for crying out loud, what the hell happened? Was this a Producers-esque scam? Or did the studio seriously interfere that much? No amount of explanation is really going to save this trainwreck, but I'll admit that I'm the least bit curious.

I'll admit, for all of its problems, The Predator would actually make for a pretty good bad movie. I can easily see this working well in a room full of intoxicated friends, or with a rowdy audience at the local theater; but at the same time, it's important that everyone understand that statements such as these aren't exactly points in the film's favor. If the kindest thing you can say about a movie is "it's not offensively bad, it's just stupid and forgettable", there's clearly a problem, especially when talented people are involved. It could be fun with the right audience, but then again so is the first Predator. Predator didn't need to be "ironically good", it was just "good". Every idea we see here (Predator hounds, genetic modification, a crazed government alien-hunter, a ragtag gang of ex-military guys throwing out vulgar banter, etc.) was already done far better in other Predator movies (yes, even Predator 2). Is it the worst thing ever? No. But is there a solid reason to run out and watch it? Also no.

If you're at all curious about just how stupid the plot to The Predator can get, make sure to check out my fresh-out-of-the-theater plot rundown on YouTube!

REVIEW: The Meg

Honestly, what did you even expect? Am I supposed to talk about The Meg like it's a real movie, and not just an absurd pile of schlock made to milk millions and millions of dollars out of the ever-growing Chinese movie market? We've all watched the trailer, we all know what this movie is about. There's a giant prehistoric shark and Jason Statham is gonna go deck it in the schnoz. I knew what I was getting into when I bought my ticket, and I got exactly what I expected. It's a curious kind of situation, since this is a blatant cash-grab without an ounce of creative intent behind it; one could very easily make the case that movies like this are causing the death of cinema the world over. But then again, I didn't exactly have a bad time with The Meg, so that raises the question of whether or not there's a place for big-budget trash, so long as it at least manages to be enjoyably entertaining.

The plot is, as one might expect, basically just an excuse to get Jason Statham to duke it out with a giant shark. I actually wasn't expecting it to take so long to really get going; this is a movie that, surprisingly enough, sticks by the genre convention of not showing the monster until after the first act is finished. An exploratory expedition is sent to the bottom of the Marianas Trench on the off-chance that the bottom of the ocean isn't actually the bottom; it turns out that the researcher's hypothesis was correct, and that the "bottom" of the trench was really just a cloud of super-cold hydrogen-sulfide or whatever. It's B-movie science, so I don't really feel the need to pick it apart that much, the important thing is that there's megalodons in them hills, and wouldn't you know it the submarine they've sent down to investigate just so happens to be piloted by Jason Statham's ex-wife (Jessica MaNamee). After rescuing the submarine, the megalodon follows the team up through the resulting gap in the thermocline, entering into an all-you-can-eat buffet of whales, boats, and tasty tasty humans. The Meg's got a hankering for some Chinese food, and it's up to Jason Statham to make it extinct all over again.

Let's talk about Jason Statham for a bit, because he's honestly the lynchpin that makes this movie work at all. I'm not sure if he legitimately thought this was a good script or if he's just a true professional, but while literally everyone else is yukking it up and not even trying (except for Li Bingbing, who I'm sure isn't as terrible when she doesn't have to speak English), Jason Statham is taking his role as a submarine-driving shark fighter 110% seriously. See, my problem with movies like Sharknado and the like is how they're so obviously made to be comedies. You can't intentionally make a movie that's so bad it's good. That's just not how it works. A person slipping on a banana peel is funny. A person throwing themselves to the ground intentionally with the intended goal of making people laugh is just embarrassing.

With Statham putting in a totally stone-faced performance, he ends up acting as the straight-man to literally everything else in the movie, and the end result provided more than a few laugh-out-loud moments. Sure, it's not exactly low-concept humor, but I defy anyone to watch Jason Statham throw on a wetsuit and dive into the ocean to go confront a shark the size of a Greyhound bus and not at least crack a smile at how absurd a visual it is. Tonally, it very much reminded me of something like Deep Blue Sea or TriStar's 1998 Godzilla reboot. I grew up loving these schlocky monster movies, as mediocre as they may be, and I could very much see someone getting the same kind of enjoyment out of seeing Jason Statham take on the Meg in the same way I got a kick out of watching Saffron Burrows and LL Cool J take on a gang of super-smart makos. The only problem is that, for as big and bombastic as The Meg tries to make itself appear, the action we get comes off as totally toothless, especially for a B-movie about a giant shark.

It's safe to say that, after serving as the villains in so many monster movies, sharks have gotten something of a bad rap. As I'm sure we've heard time and time again from various Snapple facts, you're actually about 23 times more likely to die from being struck my lightening than you are to die from a shark attack. Ever since Jaws came out, they've been portrayed mostly as mindless eating machines, despite even species as fearsome as the great white coming close to becoming endangered. Shark finning is a serious problem (as The Meg takes the time to tell us about in an odd, tonally-dissonant moment) and it's important to remember that sharks aren't monsters; they're simply animals doing what animals do. With all that said, The Meg is a monster movie about a giant dino-shark terrorizing the Pacific. As far as sharks go, it's not a stretch to say that they're just swimming mouths; biting, gnashing, and eating are about the only means of attack they have. So, to quote the film's lead, "Where’s the f---ing blood? It’s like, 'There’s a shark.'"

Half the fun of these kinds of monster movies is watching a cast of paper-thin characters eat it when the titular terror decides to eat them. While we do get a few good deaths here and there, they're all completely bloodless; the film avoids showing any humans getting chomped or ripped apart, opting instead for everyone to just be cartoonishly swallowed whole. It really puts a damper on an otherwise perfectly enjoyable B-movie, since well-done gore can add a ton to the enjoyment factor of an otherwise unremarkable movie. The only problem with turning a movie like The Meg into a blood-soaked gore-fest is that such violence would inevitably result in an R rating, greatly cutting into the film's potential profit margins. Seeing as how The Meg has already managed to out-perform the latest Star Wars movie, I suppose this gambit paid off. I can honestly say I'd have had more fun with it if I also got to see some blood and gore (and let's be honest, some tongue-in-cheek nudity never hurt anyone either), but those box office numbers don't lie. I saw a 9:45 showing with some friends at our local cinema, and just one row in front of us was a pair of parents with two kids who couldn't have been older than 6 or 7. They even brought blankets and stuffed animals, presumably for if the kids got bored (or fell asleep, considering we left the theater just after midnight); truly, The Meg is a movie with universal appeal. The only problem is that the movie's attempt to please every single paying demographic leaves it without a real sense of identity, and its hesitation to commit to a singular tone or audience leaves the whole thing feeling somewhat middling overall.

All in all, The Meg is a fun enough time, I suppose. It's surprisingly competently made (there's a fake-out just after one of the larger action sequences that actually got me) and the effects look pretty solid for something that was mostly shot in massive water tanks surrounded by green screens. At the end of the day, I paid for my ticket to see Jason Statham fight a giant shark and got to watch Jason Statham fight a giant shark. All in all, not a bad way to spend an evening; I know "I don't regret spending my money" isn't exactly the highest praise a film can receive, not every movie I've paid to see this summer can make the same boast. There are definitely better B-movies out there (and certainly better shark movies), but The Meg is an altogether inoffensive excuse to get together with some friends and share some laughs. Just don't expect anything even remotely memorable, original, or intelligent.

REVIEW: Ant-Man and the Wasp

Speaking as someone who liked the first Ant-Man, I feel like even I have to agree with everyone else in saying "who even cares about Ant-Man and The Wasp after THAT?" I mean, can you blame us? I figured I'd change my mind and come around after the hype from Infinity War died down, but it's two months later and I still can't fathom why Marvel decided to release their biggest and most-awaited film to date before their sequel to Ant-Man. I was reasonably excited for this movie, yet I still found myself saying "oh yeah, that did just came out, didn't it?" last weekend. I went to the theater, grabbed my ticket, and settled in with low expectations for an offbeat, inoffensive sci-fi/comedy romp. Unfortunately, I feel like the filmmakers approached this project with those same expectations in mind, and therein lies the problem.

Set two years after the first film, we find Scott Lang under house arrest after the airport incident in Captain America: Civil War. He hasn't worn the Ant-Man suit since, spending his sentence making up for lost time with his daughter, Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson); this all changes when he's contacted once again by Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) and her father, Hank (Michael Douglas). After the events of the first Ant-Man film, the two have been working on a device capable of accessing the Quantum Realm, the mysterious, sub-atomic dimension where Hope's mother (and Hank's wife), Janet (Michelle Pfeifer), is thought to be lost. Seeing as how Scott successfully navigated the Quantum Realm in the first movie, Hank and Hope believe him to be the key to locating and rescuing Janet. Naturally, it's not quite that easy; things are complicated, not only by Scott's incarceration, but by the Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), a sinister operative with the ability to phase through solid matter and a keen interest in Hank's research on Quantum energy. With Janet's life hanging in the balance, it's up to Ant-Man and The Wasp to save the day without violating the terms of Scott's plea arrangement.

If this movie has a strong-suit, it's most definitely the character interactions. Scott Lang continues to be one of the most likeable protagonists in the MCU, and his dynamic with Hope reaches new heights this time around. It would have been so simple to go with the old cliché of "inept but loveable man/capable but angry woman", but instead we're allowed moments to see that Hope genuinely cares about Scott. This isn't a one-sided attraction, meant to act as wish-fulfillment for any divorced dads in the audience; they work well together, both as superheroes and human beings, and this is all thanks to Rudd and Lilly's charming "workplace romance"-style chemistry. I also really liked Scott's family dynamic this time around; his relationship with Cassie continues to be tooth-achingly adorable, and it's really nice to see a divorced couple interact in a realistic yet positive manner. There's no glimmer of hope that Scott and his ex-wife (played by Judy Greer) are going to get back together, but they're both totally invested in putting their daughter first, despite the circumstances of their family situation. There isn't any of that "my ex-wife is a shrew and her new man is a tool, they're gonna get some gratifying comuppance" nonsense to be found here; it's a genuinely sweet (if a tad idyllic) portrayal of how parents and step-parents can overcome personal drama and past disputes to make a positive impact in their child's life.

Really, this movie does a lot of interesting things regarding morality and the way people overcome personal conflicts with one another. Ghost is another excellent antagonist in the modern MCU, doing questionable things for perfectly understandable reasons. Her life is at risk, the same as Janet's, so our heroes are placed in a tricky spot; if they do as Ghost asks, they're throwing away their chance at saving Hope's mother. But if they "beat" Ghost the way a superhero usually might, they're essentially condemning her to a painful death, as her condition worsens to the point that it literally causes her to phase out of existence. It's a curious predicament that leads to an admittedly inventive outcome, albeit by way of a conflict resolution that completely dismisses any and all intrigue generated by this catch-22 of a situation (not unlike the way things were resolved in Black Panther). It gives us a host of charming character interactions and a villain who plays with the story and cast in ways you wouldn't necessarily expect, only to handicap itself with a complete and utter lack of any and all ambition in every other respect.

It's a film that, compared to its predecessor, feels much more confident and self-assured of its own identity. Typically, this would be a positive thing, except that the identity in question is painfully unremarkable in nearly every way. The first Ant-Man felt like a truly daring experiment for Marvel Studios; it's the film that made everyone say "okay, I liked The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, but really? Ant-Man?" It had an uphill battle to fight in winning over mainstream audiences, and it more than succeeded. Ant-Man and The Wasp, however, feels like exactly what you'd expect if you asked someone to make a generic Marvel movie. It feels like it lacks an identity of its own, especially in a visual sense, which leads me to believe that everything I found so impressive and imaginative about the first Ant-Man was just left-over details from the original Edgar Wright draft. Unlike its predecessor, Ant-Man and The Wasp has no groundwork to build off of, so everything feels noticably flatter as a result.

The action in particular suffers the worst here; outside of a fun and engaging chase sequence through the streets of San Francisco, the fight scenes here are nothing to write home about. We rarely see things from Ant-Man or Wasp's tiny perspective (which, visually speaking, was the best thing about the first movie); instead, get ready to watch that "shrink, dodge, grow, kick, shrink, dodge, grow, kick" maneuver over and over and over again. I understand that it can be challenging to showcase shrinking powers when the main villain is a normal-sized human 100% of the time, but then that's sort of the challenge, isn't it? There's also next to no ant-based action, which was a huge disappointment for me, seeing as how that's easily Ant-Man's most unique ability. Remember that insane sequence in the first movie where Scott learned about all the different types of ants he'd be using during the heist? Here, the ants are purely set dressing and transportation, nothing more (in a movie called Ant-Man and The Wasp, no less). It's a nitpick, sure, but again, why do it at all if you're not even going to try? Ant-Man is a challenging character to bring to life on the big screen, but that's supposed to be the appeal; a movie about Ant-Man isn't going to be as straightforward in terms of its action, direction, or visuals as a movie about Captain America or The Hulk. Instead of rising to the occasion like the first movie did, Ant-Man and The Wasp puts all of its chips on its (admittedly endearing) cast and ends up feeling lesser overall because of it.

All of those flaws, however, more or less fell within my expectations. I came in expecting a lighthearted, low-stakes sci-fi adventure, nothing anywhere near on the same level as Infinity War, and that's basically what I got. I can excuse some preference-based hang-ups and nitpicks for a situation like this, where the film in question isn't really aspiring to be anything more than an enjoyable, down-to-earth romp. What I can't excuse, however, is the numerous plot holes, conveniences, and outright examples of laziness found within this film's storyline. I love Michelle Pfeifer and think she's a perfect choice for the role of Janet Van Dyne, but it's not hyperbole to say that her chunk of the story is held together with chewing gum and dental floss. Everyone's talking about the amount of technobabble in this film, which, to be fair, is to be expected from a character as deeply-rooted in the world of fantastical super-science as Ant-Man. Normally, a character like Scott Lang would act as the everyman, giving Hank and Hope an excuse to put everything in layman's terms for the audience. It's a well-worn trope, but it's more or less forgivable, seeing as how it plays a practical purpose in conveying plot details to the audience (i.e. the scene in Event Horizon in which Sam Niell sticks a pencil through a folded sheet of paper to explain warp-travel). 

The only problem is that we never really get that explanation. The constant repetition of the word "quantum" is just filler, to the point that the film itself makes it the punchline of a joke. You could make the argument that this is meant to be a clever subversion of a classic sci-fi trope (since, in reality, Hank Pym probably wouldn't waste his time explaining the ins and outs of quantum science to a schmo like Scott, especially while on the clock), but I feel that it's much more likely that the filmmakers realized that if they attempted to explain the technobabble, the entire plot would fall apart. The whole point of sci-fi is that it's fiction rooted in science; it's fascinating because, even though concepts like laser guns and robot suits are fantastical, we can more or less rationalize how they might work. Here, the Quantum Realm is essentially magic; if you were to remove every instance of the word "quantum" from the script, you'd end up with a story that answers every pertinent question with "because". How did Janet survive in the Quantum Realm for 30 years without starving or going insane? Because. Why do our heroes only have a set amount of time to rescue her? Because. I'd be fine if the Ant-Man series started to become more fantasy than sci-fi (hey, the opposite worked out alright for Thor), but this just feels indefensibly lazy. Any time a plot point has to happen, the film forces it through by way of some made-up science-y sounding words. It's the same issue I had with the black goo in Prometheus, and I honestly wouldn't care if all of these conveniences didn't occur in places that are integral to the plot we're supposed to care about. You can have harmless conveniences in your movie; it's convenient that Scott happened to be robbing a house with a shrink suit in the basement in the first Ant-Man, but the film isn't lesser for it. You can use coincidence to get your characters into a predicament, but you should never use it to get them out of it, which is something Ant-Man and The Wasp does at all the worst moments. A movie can be off-beat and endearing without insulting the viewer's intelligence, but then that's a balance that this film struggles to grasp (despite a few clever moments here and there).

Despite some really enjoyable performances and some occasionally fun action, Ant-Man and The Wasp only manages to feel painfully average at best. It's inoffensive, but altogether unremarkable, which is a shame, seeing as how this is the 20th film in the MCU. If you're just looking for an excuse to go to the cinema this summer, you could most definitely do worse, and I know kids are gonna love this just as much as they loved the first one (if you have small children, it's sure to inspire less awkward conversations about the nature of mortality than Infinity War did). That said, I'm not sure I need another Ant-Man adventure after this, if this is all they're going to aspire to be. There's nothing wrong with having more low-key entries in something as massive as the MCU; movies like Ant-Man can provide some much needed levity and breathing room in-between the larger blockbusters. But just because a movie aims to be fun and laid-back doesn't mean it has to feel this unambitious and lazy. It's just a victory lap after Infinity War, and I really hope Marvel Studios avoids this kind of attitude in the future. With how much time, effort, and money they've poured into crafting the MCU into an interwoven narrative of annual blockbusters, the one thing they should never aspire to be is "fun enough, but nonessential viewing", which is exactly what Ant-Man and The Wasp turned out to be.

REVIEW: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Let's talk about the current state of Hollywood, shall we? Not in the "surprise, everyone is a sex monster" kind of way, more in the "your profits are eventually going to reflect your lack of effort" kind of way. It's a situation, ironically enough, not dissimilar from the one presented in Jurassic Park; a big corporation bankrolls something stupid and indulgent, "spares no expense", tries to cash in on an entity they don't even begin to understand, and eventually has to suffer the consequences when the whole thing comes tumbling down. Ever since The Avengers proved that audiences were capable of following a shared-universe, multi-film narrative, every big studio under the sun has been trying to replicate that success without stopping for one moment to actually consider what made that success possible in the first place, forgetting that it took ten whole years and nearly 20 movies for the MCU to become what it is today. Modern studios seem to think that building a successful franchise is as simple as slapping a recognizable brand on literally whatever and calling it a day, when it's really far more complex than that. I'll tell you the problem with the cinematic power that they're using here; it didn't require any discipline to attain it. They saw what others had done, and they took the next step. They didn't earn the knowledge for themselves, so they don't take any responsibility for it. They stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as they could, and before they even knew what they had, they patented it and packaged it and shipped it off to theaters, and now they're selling it. They wanna sell it. 

Well... Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

Set 3 years after Jurassic World, the film follows the increasingly convoluted adventures of Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard). After the dormant volcano that Jurassic Park was apparently built on top of begins to erupt, Claire is approached by a mysterious businessman (Rafe Spall), who represents John Hammond's old friend and business partner, Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell, as a character we've never heard of up until just now). He proposes that Claire and Owen join a slightly less-than-legal expedition back to Isla Nublar in order to save what dinosaurs they can before the entire thing goes up in smoke (literally this time). Although reluctant to go at first, Owen decides to tag along in order to rescue Blue the velociraptor from certain doom; their reunion is short-lived, however, as it's revealed that the supposed rescue mission was actually a front for far seedier activities. With the island destroyed, it's up to Owen, Claire, and a group of side-characters (who are somehow more bland than our already impressively-bland protagonists) to save the dinosaurs from Rafe Spall's immoral business dealings, all while avoiding the jaws of Henry Wu's (B.D. Wong) latest genetically-altered murdersaur, the Indoraptor.

The first and most strikingly bad thing about this movie, I think, is the script. Jurassic World was nothing revolutionary, but it did its job; it was cool finally seeing the park open and we got one of the most blissfully absurd climaxes I'd ever seen in a big-budget action movie. I left the theater more or less happy, if not exactly impressed. This, however, is just painfully bad. You get the impression that everything's been dumbed down even moreso, as though this movie has no pretense that it's just something meant to sell toys to children. The characters are one-note, the leaps in logic are downright olympian, and the story truly spares no expense in outright disregarding the recurrent themes and lessons presented in literally every previous Jurassic film. I'm not going to pretend that any of these movies were exactly head-scratchers, but they at least posed an interesting question about the potential ramifications of tampering with genetic power. One of the best scenes in the original film involves everyone simply eating dinner while debating whether or not a dinosaur theme park is an ethical idea in the first place. It's a multifaceted issue; for all of Ian Malcolm's moralizing, even he is stricken with a sense of childlike awe and excitement upon seeing a live dinosaur for the first time. And despite John Hammond's fatal shortsightedness, he's never portrayed as a "bad" guy; we completely understand why he would want to open Jurassic Park, even while understanding why it's a bad idea to do so. In Fallen Kingdom, the entire point of the movie basically boils down to "yeah yeah tampering in God's domain is immoral and junk, but wouldn't it be sad if da dinosauws died? :,(".

This is essentially Bryce Dallas Howard's entire arc in this movie; I guess the controversy her character stirred up last time around scared the studio execs bad enough that they'd rather she do basically nothing at all from this point on. In Jurassic World, her character progressed from a cold, profit-oriented businesswoman to someone who was prepared to take responsibility for the abomination she was complicit in creating. In Fallen Kingdom, she's essentially just an affluent white lady who wants to save the animals because it's sad when animals die; well-done, moral guardians, another victory for the rights of fictional women. We also have Chris Pratt at possibly his most boring. Owen, as a character (though I hesitate to even call it that), doesn't really have much of a personality, something Chris Pratt possesses a "deplorable excess" of. I know this is basically a carry-over from a few years ago, when Guardians of the Galaxy made more money than anyone could have possibly predicted and Chris Pratt was forcibly inserted into everything and anything, but taking a man who's been described as the human equivalent of a golden retriever and casting him as a straight-laced, rough and tumble, military manly man just doesn't work (and I can't imagine why anyone might think it would). His performance comes off like an audition tape for a store-brand version of Indiana Jones and it's honestly impressive how this movie manages to capture exactly none of Chris Pratt's natural charm or charisma. The only actor who's properly utilized throughout the whole thing is Jeff Goldblum, returning for a few minutes as Dr. Ian Malcolm to explain why the entire plot to the movie is a generally bad idea. Out of all the characters we're shown, his is the only one that makes a lick of sense. He's the true hero of this movie (which makes sense, seeing as how this is essentially a soft-reboot of The Lost World), even though he shows up, reads his lines, and leaves in less time than it takes for me to eat a Wawa sandwich.

Aside from the miserable script (which includes such gems as "It needs a mother!" and "What a nasty woman...") and the flat, incompetent characters, the film's pacing is also all over the place. It definitely falls into your traditional three-act structure, but still finds a way to divide its story directly down the middle. It's essentially two hour-long movies mashed together, making the entire thing feel even more like a pilot for a children's cartoon series. The situation isn't helped by the over-complicated mess of a plot; I excused some of the sillier bits in Jurassic World because I was just happy to see this franchise return from extinction, but the levels of outright stupidity Fallen Kingdom achieves feel like attempts to take advantage of my good nature. Jurassic Park is a premise that, like most metaphor-driven narratives, works best when there's as little fat to trim as possible. There's a theme park full of dinosaurs; the power gets shut off due to industrial espionage, nature runs amok, don't play God, life finds a way. Simple and clean. Then you have Fallen Kingdom, in which an evil businessman needs a team of mercenaries to save a velociraptor from an exploding island so that it can teach his weaponized super-dinosaur how to feel empathy, only for said super-dinosaur to run amok inside a Scooby-Doo mystery mansion, and also conservation is important or whatever. I get the impression that the people behind these movies have no idea why Jurassic Park is as good as it is beyond "WOAH COOL DINOSAURS".

To be perfectly fair, however, none of this is the fault of the director, J.A. Bayona. In fact, I'd say that the direction is one of the few things in this movie that I unironically liked; hell, I loved it. Bayona is, first and foremost, a horror director (having directed films like The Orphanage), so he's able to bring his own, unique style to the table (rather than just attempting to ape Spielberg like so many before him). The opening sequence in particular is unironically excellent, one of the best scenes in any Jurassic movie (if you can ignore them moving the mosasaur lagoon from the center of the island to the shoreline for plot reasons). There's a great amount of emphasis placed on the use of color and lighting, helping this corporate-designed product feel a little bit more like an actual film, rather than something meant to sell baby raptor toys to all the kids in the audience. For as schlocky as it is, the climax (in which the film essentially becomes a gothic monster movie) is actually a pretty fun time, thanks entirely to Bayona's fresh perspective. The action, while not exactly deep or emotionally engaging, is well-shot and exciting, which definitely kept me from outright hating this movie. I'm all but convinced by this point that Colin Trevorrow is responsible for everything wrong with Jurassic World, as he's relegated to script duty for this one and, as I've covered, that's where all of the film's problems occur. If there's one thing the executives at Universal should take away from this experience, it's the benefit that having a fresh face in the director's chair can bring to a project. With how well Fallen Kingdom is doing financially, a sequel is inevitable, and I truly hope that Bayona gets another shot at bat (hopefully to make something less inane than what we have here).

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is an easy lock for the stupidest thing I'm going to see in theaters in 2018. Normally, I'll be the first to champion the use of suspension of disbelief (especially in a summer blockbuster about genetically-altered dinosaurs), but even I have my limits. Much like with Disney's handling of Star Wars, the pendulum has swung way too far and now things are getting out of hand; the studios were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should. When it comes to these modern mega-blockbusters, the goal is no longer to make an enjoyable, accessible film, so much as it is to replicate the financial success of the first Jurassic World and break $1 billion at the box office.  In order to make a sustainable franchise, it's important that the product itself is more or less something of quality; this is why, after an entire decade of Marvel movies, everyone who saw Infinity War is excited and eager for what comes next. Meanwhile, you have Star Wars, which has had exclusively mediocre to outright bad movies since The Force Awakens and, surprise, now has to be completely reevaluated only three short years after they got the ball rolling. It'll happen to Jurassic World as well; they'll make their money now, but they're only postponing the inevitably embarrassing crash-and-burn that awaits all franchises tackled in this manner. Jurassic World made a ton of money, and Fallen Kingdom appears to be on the same track. But at the end of the day (and after adjusting for inflation), the original Jurassic Park is still the top dog of the franchise, both critically and financially. That kind of success is well within Universal's reach, they simply need expend the effort needed to seize it. And as we've learned time and time again, sloppy work in the name of maximizing profit only leads to catastrophic failure.

If you don't mind spoilers, be sure to check out my full plot-rundown on YouTube!

REVIEW: Incredibles 2

It's about damn time. After fourteen long years of waiting, The Incredibles finally has a sequel. Really, I should talk briefly about the first film before we get into the nitty-gritty on Incredibles 2. Released in 2004 and directed by animation legend Brad Bird, The Incredibles turned the superhero genre on its head well before the MCU came to town. Stylish yet down-to-earth, the film was arguably Pixar's most mature film to date, earning the studio its first PG rating. I personally consider the first Incredibles to be Pixar's best film, as well as one of the greatest superhero films ever made. Suffice to say, this sequel has some big shoes to fill; Brad Bird had always said that he would never return to make a sequel unless he had a story he felt he needed to tell, a respectable display of restraint in this day and age (especially considering that Disney is involved). So after all this time, is Incredibles 2 a good movie? Yes. Was it worth waiting nearly two decades for? Ehhh...

In a move no one could have predicted, the plot picks up immediately after the end of the first film, in which we see the city of Metroville menaced by the fiendish Underminer (Pixar's good luck charm, John Ratzenberger). Naturally, the Parr family springs into action, only to find themselves arrested after their heroism causes its fair share of very expensive collateral damage. While parents Bob and Helen (Craig T. Nelson and Holly Hunter) discuss their concerns over raising three super-powered kids in a world where superheroes are illegal, they are approached with a business proposition by an eccentric magnate by the name of Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk). A longtime fan of superheros, Deavor would like nothing more than to see the laws keeping them underground overturned. Determined to show the supers' side of the story, he and his sister, Evelyn (Catherine Keener), outfit their suits with body cameras; the supers would go out and do what they do best, with the Deavors' considerable PR connections and insurance plans keeping their images clean. In order to get the project off the ground, Winston proposes that they lead with Elastigirl, as she's routinely caused the least collateral damage out of the bunch (which makes sense, compared to her human wrecking ball of a husband). This leaves Mr. Incredible, typically comfortable with being the breadwinner for the Parr clan, out of his element, staying at home to raise the kids while Elastigirl tracks down a new supervillain threat known as the Screenslaver (Bill Wise).

I'd like to apologize in advance, since a good deal of this Review is going to involve me comparing Incredibles 2 with its predecessor, but I feel like that's somewhat unavoidable when discussing sequels (especially sequels with such a large gap of time in between them). The first Incredibles featured some remarkably mature themes for an animated superhero film targeted at children; it's not difficult to see Mr. Incredible's complaints about society "celebrating mediocrity" as a critique of No Child Left Behind, and the stakes presented had a very real-world weight to them. Before finding out that her husband is sneaking away to play superhero, Helen has a legitimate fear that he's having an affair. Later on, she has a heart-to-heart talk with her children, in which she explains that the people they're going up against won't hesitate to kill them, if given the chance. Hot off the heels of Finding Nemo, The Incredibles was a surprisingly heavy film for Pixar (but then again, it was brought to us by the man who made The Iron Giant). It's because of this that I found myself disappointed in some respects with Incredibles 2; it's a fun time, but it feels very much conceptually watered-down. Whereas the first film just oozes atmosphere ripped straight from pulp spy stories and Golden Age comics, Incredibles 2 feels much moreso influenced by Saturday morning cartoons. It deftly avoids simply being a rehash of things we've already seen, but there isn't a single moment in Incredibles 2 that even approaches the tension, atmosphere, or emotional weight of the iconic "Missile Lock" scene from the first movie.

It doesn't help matters that the Screenslaver, despite an intriguing origin story, amounts to little more than the most recent in Disney's growing line of predictable Scooby-Doo twist villains. I won't spoil the Screenslaver's true identity, but I'll say this; I had figured it out before I even walked into the theater, simply by virtue of looking at the names of the main characters. It's a twist so painfully obvious and overly-telegraphed that I honestly thought the film was trying to pull one over on me, but alas, it really is just that simplistic. Granted, we're talking about an animated family film primarily marketed to children, but I still have a hard time believing that anyone above the age of 9 would have any difficulty in putting the pieces together before the other shoe drops. The surprise villain reveal worked well in Wreck-It Ralph and Zootopia, but it feels like this is a trope that appears in nearly every single animated Disney film released nowadays. When you go into the theater expecting a twist... well, it's not much of a twist anymore, is it? Granted, the first Incredibles had a twist villain in the form of Syndrome (formerly Mr. Incredible's number one fan, turned to a life of villainy after being rejected by his idol), but Screenslaver doesn't even come close to matching Syndrome's level of complexity and ambition. For those who need a refresher, Syndrome's evil scheme essentially involved murdering countless superheroes (both to gain revenge and to field-test his gadgets and equipment), then asserting himself as a new superhero, saving the day from threats that he himself engineered. After he grows old and retires, he plans to market his tech to the general populace, effectively making superheroes an obsolete concept; "when everyone's super, no one will be."

Screenslaver, on the other hand, basically just wants to hypnotize people into ruining the legislation that will make superheroes legal again, ensuring that they stay illegal. And that's about it.

I also have to say that I wasn't a fan of the new group of heroes introduced as part of Winston's endeavors to legalize hero work. While I usually adore the character design and art direction found in both Incredibles films, these new supers just totally missed the mark with me, clashing painfully against the already-established retro art-deco look. It also doesn't really help that, like other aspects of the film, they feel more than a little conceptually shallow. One of the strongest subtextual aspects of The Incredibles is the relationship between the main characters' personalities, roles, and powersets. Fathers are meant to be strong, so Bob can bench-press a locomotive without breaking a sweat. Mothers have a habit of stretching themselves thin to keep everyone together, hence Helen's innate flexibility. Violet (Sarah Vowell) is an insecure teenager, who wants nothing more than to disappear; her powers include invisibility and the ability to put up psychic barriers. Dash (now voiced by Huck Milner) is a hyperactive ten-year-old with super speed and baby Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile) is a polymorph with a whole host of powers, representing the unrealized potential an infant possesses. Even Frozone's powerset feels subtextually appropriate, considering he's something of a "cool" uncle to the Parr children. Meanwhile, among this new group of heroes, we have characters like Screech, who is just an owl-man. I have nothing against owls, owls are cool, but it feels like the design session for this character started and ended with the phrase "what if one of them was an owl?"

The only member of this group of second-stringers who has anything close to a personality is Voyd (Sophia Bush), an awkward and insecure fangirl who can create portals. Even though she's the only one of these new superheroes to get more than one or two actual lines, she still doesn't really have much in the way of a character arc (or even a character, really). She's just sort of there, her only purpose being to participate in one of the better fight scenes later on in the third act. If anything, I'd have much preferred to see some of the older superheroes who were forced into hiding step back into the public eye; there was a fantastic bonus feature on the DVD of the original Incredibles that I highly recommend anyone with even a passing interest in these movies check out. It really gives some insight into the level of effort Brad Bird and company put into the worldbuilding of the first movie, constructing backstories and personalities for every single superhero we only see briefly mentioned in the first film. One super is implied to have been a closeted homosexual, leaving his five adopted children in the custody of his "roommate" after dying due to a cape malfunction. Another views superheroes as a superior race and uses his good looks and charisma to seduce female supervillains before killing them on behalf of the government. Another is stated to be a recovering alcoholic. Each of these background characters are given more personality and characterization within the span of a 24 minute DVD special feature than any of these new superheroes are throughout the entirety of Incredibles 2.

With all the negatives out of the way, let's move onto the things I loved about Incredibles 2, namely literally everything else. Sure, I have my gripes, but this is still an Incredibles sequel written and directed by Brad Bird; even though this is definitely a movie with flaws, I feel like Brad Bird is the kind of person who would have to actively try to make a bad animated film. First off, the animation is absolutely stunning, really highlighting just how far the medium has come in the years since the first Incredibles. I'm not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that Incredibles 2 has some of the best superhero action ever put to screen. I wish I was joking when I say that the scene in which Jack-Jack harasses a wild raccoon is leagues better than any fight scene in the DCEU, but I'm so glad that I'm not. I praised Infinity War for getting creative with its fight scenes, but Incredibles 2 is on a whole other level when it comes to making superpowers look both cool and fun. It's so obvious that the people behind this had a ball just mashing all these different powers together and seeing how far they could push the creative envelope, all in the name of making the most visually-engaging action setpieces they could manage; there is no weak link when it comes to the action here, it's all brilliant. Even though the new superheroes are bland and half-baked when it comes to their characterization, their powersets make for some truly memorable action in the latter half of the film. Not to mention, a surprising amount of the action (especially during the Underminer sequence in the beginning of the film) is dedicated to actually saving people. You know, that thing that superheroes used to do? Right there, the film gets tremendous brownie points from me just for that; it's easy to make a superhero look cool when all you have them do is punch a bad guy, it's far more impressive when they manage to make assisting a little old lady look both dynamic and heroic.

We also get to spend more time with the Parr family, which is really the main draw here. Brad Bird's strategy of blending the fantastical with the mundane has resulted in some of the most down-to-earth and realistic portrayals of human beings I've ever seen in an animated film, naturally helped along by the stellar voicework. Even if Dash and Frozone get the short end of the stick in terms of character growth, it's still great seeing this family dynamic back in play. Craig T. Nelson and Holly Hunter knock it out of the park, bringing forth a chemistry that perfectly sells the idea that, while their marriage isn't always ideal, it's most certainly perfect in its own special way. Sarah Vowell is indistinguishable from her first turn as Violet 14 years ago, which is no small feat; if I'm being honest, she ended up being one of my favorite characters this time around. Maybe it's just that, in the time since the first Incredibles film came out (in which I could only really relate to Dash), I've been able to experience life as both a teenager and an adult, but Violet's interactions with Bob made for some of the funniest (not to mention, most heartwarming) moments in the entire film.

I remember hearing the initial plot synopsis for Incredibles 2 some time ago; how Elastigirl would be off doing hero work while Mr. Incredible stayed at home with the kids, and being terrified that it was going to fall back on the same tired old clichéd scenario we've seen a million times before. Where the dad is reduced to a simpering buffoon, horrified and baffled by things such as diapers and cooking dinner. Thankfully, the situation presented in Incredibles 2 couldn't be farther from that played-out stereotype; despite all the focus on Elastigirl tracking down the Screenslaver, I have to say that I honestly preferred the B-story about Bob bonding with the kids more than anything else. Mainly because, despite a bit of a learning curve, it turns out that he's a legitimately good parent.

 This doesn't play out like a hack sitcom, where dad is too pigheaded to admit that he needs his wife to "deal" with the children; he's Mr. Incredible, and that means he rises to the challenge, even if that challenge happens to involve learning New Math. Sure, not all of his approaches towards being a stay-at-home-parent work out (a scene in which Bob takes the kids out to dinner at a family restaurant where Violet's would-be boyfriend happens to work is pure perfection; hilarious, heartwarming, and cringe-inducing in all the right ways). And granted, he eventually has to admit that he needs a bit of help here and there (understandable when you're dealing with a baby who can phase through dimensions and shoot lasers from his eyes). But it's the sheer enthusiasm and effort he puts into being a dad that sells this storyline. Make no mistake, this is a very Elastigirl-centric movie in regards to the majority of the action and adventure, but Bob bonding with his kids is where the true heart of the story lies. It's no coincidence that this was released on Father's Day weekend, and it's great to see a cartoon dad who isn't an incompetent moron who feels "stuck" with his children. Sure, he's a little disappointed he doesn't get to go be Mr. Incredible right away, but it's made abundantly clear that he doesn't view raising his kids as a chore or an inconvenience; it takes a lot out of him, but he pushes through because he legitimately loves his family. I feel like this kind of unironic emotion is (unfortunately) a rare thing to see from father-figures in works of fiction nowadays, but if Incredibles 2 has a strong suit (or would that be super suit?), this is definitely it. 

At the end of the day, I can still safely say that I prefer The Incredibles over Incredibles 2 any day. But there's also no way I'd call Incredibles 2 disappointing or lackluster; sure, I wish it had gone for something a little more conceptually ambitious (considering how groundbreaking the first film was), but the simple truth is that I am absolutely in love with this world that Brad Bird and company have managed to create. The characters are as endearing as they are relatable, the action is fantastic, and did I mention how legitimately funny this movie is? Put simply, it's a continuing adventure in the world of The Incredibles, and that's never a bad thing, even if parts of it can feel a little watered-down. It's really a testament to how talented Brad Bird and pals are, considering something that feels like their B material easily ranks head and shoulders above most everything else we've got on the market. If it wasn't for Infinity War, I could safely say that Incredibles 2 would be an easy lock for my favorite superhero film of 2018; as it stands, the two are just about neck-and-neck, so take that as you will. No, it doesn't reach the mythic heights of its predecessor, but the same can be said of many quality films (and many quality Pixar films, at that). It's funny, it's action packed, and it's full of that patented, down-to-Earth Brad Bird charm that leaves me hoping it won't take another 14 years to get Incredibles 3 off the ground.