Off the Cuff Reviews Jurassic World (2015)

On the eve of my trip to the cinema to watch Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, it's time to review the previous instalment in this franchise: the original Jurassic World (2015). This was actually the first film I ever saw in IMAX, and I was not disappointed. That's right. I legitimately don't understand a lot of the criticism this film gets. I thought it was excellent. And I still think that. Starring Chris Pratt as Owen Grady, Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire Dearing, Vincent D'Onofrio as Vic Hoskins, Ty Simpkins as Gray Mitchell, Nick Robinson as Zach Mitchell, Omar Sy as Barry, B. D. Wong as Dr. Henry Wu and Irrfan Khan as Simon Masrani.

Jurassic World (2015)

Okay, straight away, I feel like I need to address some of the regular criticism this movie seems to get and why I don't really have a problem with it. The first is that not as much animatronics were used and the dinosaurs are heavily CGI. Well... who cares? Honestly, I don't give a s*** if they're CGI or animatronics, they still look great. Remember, I saw this in IMAX, so if the dinosaurs looked horrible, it would have been painfully obvious, and I was honestly blown away by how great they looked. The dinosaur hatching in the opening was particularly jaw-dropping. I feel like the people complaining about the lack of animatronics are just those purists who didn't want a new Jurassic movie to begin with and will find the tiniest things to complain about. Stop it, stop that. Oh, and while you're at it, stop complaining about the product placements. Yes, there's a lot of them, but it's a theme park. What the hell kind of theme park have you been to where there's not branding everywhere? So what if Chris Pratt drinks a Coca-Cola right in front of the camera? It would have been more out of place if he was drinking an unlabelled Cola product that was obviously Coke. In fact, look around the room you're in right now and I guarantee you there are brands there. Look, I'll do it for my room. Let's see... Apple, Acer, Colgate, Nintendo, Sony, Nerf, BBC, Disney... yeah, brands are everywhere. At least the story isn't driven by it. They're just there in the background, like they would be in any amusement park. Just accept it, and move on.

Chris Pratt as Owen Grady

Speaking of the amusement park, it's such a joy to see John Hammond's vision realised. Granted, it's a more modern take, but I do believe this is what John Hammond was aiming for when he created Jurassic Park. We don't see any attractions in the first movie, but they talk about how they're planning on installing some in the future, like the gyro-sphere ride, the petting zoo, it's really great to see it all come to life. Granted, the film just skims over how the hell they managed to get this place up and running after the events of the first three films, but it's not really important to the story, and I believe that somewhere in this world there would be advocacy groups looking to shut it down. As for people who ask why they would do such a thing after the events of the first film and that it would never work, it did. The park was opened and sustained for many years. Jurassic World was a success. It was the creation of the Indominus that lead to its downfall. And, the Indominus rex itself is a really threatening creature, and a scary one at that. They do a good job of establishing its motives, but I'll get to that later. The one thing I will say is that the wide variety of abilities it has seem kind of manufactured on the spot, especially considering it uses each of its abilities once and then never does it again. It feels at times like the Indominus can just do whatever the screenwriter wants it to do, and I don't quite believe it could have generated these abilities without someone knowing about it, like the scientists who made it or the people that have been monitoring it since it was born.

Indominus rex

The dinosaurs themselves, beyond looking impressive, are also given a little extra something in this film. In fact, this film succeeds in doing something that previous Jurassic Park movies, particularly The Lost World, tried: it makes them feel like animals. That might seem a little obvious, but really, the Velociraptors are a great example of this. They can be trained, like any animal could, and their bond with Owen throughout the film is so great to watch, but it doesn't take away from their menacing nature. They're still hunters, and the scene where they all turn on the humans is particularly chilling, but there's still that link that they share with Owen that makes them feel like real, proper animals. Again, it's a little hard to explain, but take the Indominus as another example. It was raised in solitude, and never got to socialise with the other animals, so of course it would become the monster it became. The scene where we realise it's killing for fun was especially effective, and really, the message of this movie is a lesson about the treatment of animals. Think about it: the Indominus is caged away from all the other animals, and it becomes a killing machine. The army guy wants to use the animals for his own purposes gets what's coming to him. But the man who developed a bond with the animals and truly respected them is spared. It's not exactly subtle, but I do feel like it is an important message, especially given how some people treat animals today.

Omar Sy as Barry and Blue the Velociraptor

Okay, we've talked enough about the animals, what about the people? Well, there's a reason I've saved them for last, and that's because they really aren't that interesting to talk about, with a few exceptions. Of course, this was by design, and I don't really think it's a big problem, it's just that these people aren't exactly as fleshed out as the cast of the original movie, again, with a few exceptions. I actually prefer the kids from this film over the kids from the first. Not only are they both great actors, but the arc the brothers have is really touching, and felt real as well. This arc is where a lot of the heart of the film comes from, and I do think it paid off really well. Owen Grady is given a lot to do as well, and his character shines through his relationship with the Raptors. Of course, it goes without saying that Chris Pratt kills it in this role, and Bryce Dallas Howard works really well off him. The two of them also have great chemistry, and I actually really like the character of Claire Dearing. Vincent D'Onofrio does his job well enough, and I do like that they brought back B. D. Wong and gave him a little more juicy material to work with. Beyond that, I'll also say that Katie McGrath does a great job in her limited role, but that might just be my inner Merlin/Supergirl fan coming through. Her death in particular was one of the most, if not the most, brutal death we've seen in a Jurassic movie.

B. D. Wong as Henry Wu

In the end, Jurassic World (2015) isn't the cash-grab failure everyone thought it would be and a lot of people still think it is. It's not as deep or as thought-provoking as the original, but no Jurassic film ever will be, so just shut up and have fun with this movie. That's how it was intended, after all. 8.5/10.

Next: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

Off the Cuff Reviews Jurassic Park III (2001)

And so it comes to this. For the record, prior to this week, I had already seen the entirety of the first two Jurassic Park films, and around the same time I sat down to watch Jurassic Park III (2001). At about the 40 minute mark, I turned it off and never put it on again. Even as a stupid, stupid, dinosaur-obsessed kid, I didn't like this movie. And now, having watched the whole film... yeah, I was right. This movie's stupid. Easily the worst of the original trilogy, and considering my opinion of the 2nd one, that says a lot. Starring Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant, William H. Macy as Paul Kirby, Tea Leoni as Amanda Kirby, Alessandro Nivola as Billy Brennan, Trevor Morgan as Eric Kirby and Michael Jeter as Udesky.

Jurassic Park III (2001)

I rarely do this, but I'm actually going to go through the whole film from start to finish to showcase exactly why this movie is so dumb. Right from the opening scene, we learn that a company has managed to set up a parasailing company right near Isla Sorna called Dino-Soar. I can usually forgive a pun, but I thought the ending of the previous film suggested they were going to take steps to ensure human interaction with the island would no longer happen. Well, if a company is able to manufacture custom parasails, I'd say business is good for them, so that mission statement from the last film clearly didn't pan out. How the hell did that happen? Why was that allowed to happen? Then, the crew of the boat get attacked... in the middle of the ocean... and we never find out what attacked them... 'kay, and the young boy who was parasailing drifts off onto the island. We then cut to Alan Grant, played wonderfully once again by Sam Neill, and we find out that he and Dr. Satler have since split up. In fact, she now has kids with someone else. So, all of that development from the first film... was for nothing. That relationship which worked so well in the first film... wasted. I don't... I really don't understand why they did that. It didn't add anything to the movie, it didn't cause a change in Dr. Grant's character, so why piss off the audience like that?

Sam Neill as Alan Grant

Dr. Grant and his assistant, Billy, are approached by Mr. and Mrs. Kirby, the estranged parents of the boy who was lost on Isla Sorna 8 weeks prior. But, rather than say 'Our child is on the island and we need your help to find him', they say 'We're adventure-seekers and we want to see the island for our anniversary'. Um... it may be just me, but why lie about that? Pretty much anyone is more likely to help look for a lost child over fulfil someone's life-threatening ambitions. It doesn't mean much anyway, considering Mr. Kirby offers to fund his dig-site, and Dr. Grant agrees to go, despite this being the exact same incentive John Hammond offered him, and look how that turned out. Once they get to the island, we get our first dinosaur attack scene. Yes, it happens that quick. I've mentioned this before, but any good monster movie looking to establish a threat would usually tease the big monster for a few scenes before actually revealing it and having it do some damage. But, instead we get none of that and launch straight into a Spinosaurus attack scene. The scene itself is fine, but without the build-up, I was far less frightened of it than I should have been, which is why you really need that build-up, to establish it as a threat. Where the Spinosaurus was during the events of The Lost World, however, is something I'm willing to overlook, since we do get a nicely executed scene of the Spinosaurus killing a Tyrannosaurus, which was a big 'Oh, damn' moment which I appreciated. What they should have done was have them come across the Tyrannosaurus immediately, it does some damage for a bit, then tease the Spinosaurus, build it up, then have it come in and win a fight against the T. rex. That would have been a far better introduction to this new threat.

Spinosaurus

The group then come the parasail near a Velociraptor nest. Now is probably a good time to mention that while William H. Macy does a fine enough job here, Tea Leoni is insufferable. I hate this character, and I hate this performance. Everything is either no-effort or yelling at the top of her lungs. It reminded my of Willie from Temple of Doom, and that should tell you all you need to know. They are soon attacked by the Velociraptors who have somehow undergone a design change despite that kind of evolution taking much longer than that normally, and Eric, the kid who went missing, comes in out of nowhere and saves Alan. The movie sort of glosses over how he was able to survive this long on his own, and while I wouldn't say it's impossible, the fact that the place they crashed was right near a Velociraptor nest should probably have resulted in a very short stay on the island. Both parties eventually reunite after Eric hears his father's satellite phone ringing... from inside the stomach of the Spinosaurus. And, the fact the phone could somehow be heard over the footsteps of a Spinosaurus is yet another example of how dumb this movie can be. After escaping the Spinosaurus, Dr. Grant discovers that Billy stole some Velociraptor eggs from the nest, hoping to sell them to help the dig. Oh, yeah, it turns out that the Kirbys don't have the money they promised Dr. Grant, so don't ask me how they had the money to get to the island or hire all those other people in the first place. Later, they stumble into a giant birdcage housing a bunch of Pteranodons, and, really, this is the only really well-handled scene in the film. The build-up is nice, the staging is good, it's all pretty solid, not to mention it's something we haven't seen in the other films.

Tea Leoni as Amanda Kirby and William H. Macy as Paul Kirby

They eventually recover the phone, and Dr. Grant calls Ellie for help. The group encounter the Velociraptors again, who have been stalking the group to get their eggs back. Dr. Grant uses a device that mimics the larynx of a Velociraptor to 'speak' to the pack, which was constructed from a fossil they'd discovered earlier in the movie. Um, again, I'm not expert, but aren't vocal cords predominantly made of cartilage? Stuff that would decompose and, therefore, not fossilise? So, this Velociraptor larynx thing should not exist. I'm sorry, I can overlook a lot of pseudo-science in this films, but this is where I draw the line. Particularly because it turns the Raptors, the most threatening presence in both previous movies, into a huge joke. I couldn't take them seriously, I just couldn't, especially not with that stupid larynx thing. But, it's okay, because the army then shows up out of f***ing nowhere to save them. Yeah, turns out Ellie called the navy and the marine corps to save them. And, yet, when a 12-year-old boy goes missing earlier in the film, there's nothing they can do. Um... WHAT? Talk about deus ex machina. Oh, and now we know why Ellie and Grant are no longer together. It's so that he can call her so she can summon the armed forces out of nowhere to make this bulls*** ending happen. What a joke. What a f***ing joke. I'm sorry, but this ending actually made me angry. And, the icing on the cake, as the group all fly off the island, the Pteranodons are also flying away, looking for 'new nesting grounds'. Now, remember how the Pteranodon scene was the only really threatening scene in the film? Yeah, so when this ending happens, I was thinking 'Oh, no. What a horrifying development'. And, yet, the swelling music somehow indicates this is a majestic site, or something, even though these things are inevitably off to the mainland to do some more killing. No? We're not going to address this? We're not going to deal with this new threat to all civilisation? Oh, it's the credits. Well. we're f***ed. And so is this movie.

Trevor Morgan as Eric Kirby

Jurassic Park III (2001) is stupid. It's dull. It's so oddly paced and poorly written, you'd almost suspect they were writing the movie in the process of filming it. And... yeah, that's actually what they did. No wonder it came out bad. I really didn't need to watch this, since I'm almost positive this movie won't have any relevance to the plot of the future films. Shame about my OCD. 2/10.

Next: Jurassic World.

Off the Cuff Reviews The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

Okay, so the second movie in my Jurassic Park catch-up, and I feel as though I might catch some criticism for this one, but I wasn't a fan. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) is a movie that tries to recreate the winning formula of the original film, but doesn't succeed nearly as well, and though there a some redeeming elements here and there, I can't say the good outweighs the bad. Starring Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm, Julianne Moore as Dr. Sarah Harding, Pete Postlethwaite as Roland Tembo, Arliss Howard as Peter Ludlow, Vince Vaughn as Nick van Owen, Vanessa Lee Chester as Kelly Curtis and Richard Attenborough as John Hammond.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

Right off the bat, I have to mention how much of a downgrade the visual effects are here, which is curious, since this film came out 6 years after the original, and you'd think the effects would get better with time. However, while the practical effects are still fantastic, there are far more computer-generated effects than the original. And, I don't have a problem with CGI in these movies, but contrasted with the practical effects, they stick out like a sore thumb. They went about 50/50 with practical and CGI, and that, unfortunately, makes it incredibly noticeable and a little ugly when they switch to CG. The blend was far better in the first film, and I could barely ever tell which effects were which. Here, it's fine enough when they get into San Diego, but on the island, especially during the day, it's a little pathetic. The soundtrack is still a big win, so there's that, and the remixes of the main theme all send shivers down my spine when I hear them. You all know I love it when a soundtrack makes use of a recurring motif, and this nailed that to a tee.

Tyrannosaurus rex

Unfortunately, the main place this movie falls apart is its plot. The whole thing just feels like a paint-by-numbers of the original Jurassic Park movie, and I don't mean just that people get sent to an island with dinosaurs. It's almost uncanny at times. Did we have our scene with T. rex attacking cars in the rain? Cool. Do we have a scene with the T. rex barely keeping pace while the humans outrun it (which makes less sense here since the people are clearly much slower than the jeep was and, if anything, this T. rex would be faster since it hasn't been living in captivity)? Cool. Did we get our scene with the raptors stalking our heroes through a building? Cool. Really, while on the island, the movie is just a bunch of action scenes strung together with barely enough set-up to justify them. And, that was basically the first film as well, but all the set-up in that was brilliantly integrated into the plot itself, not just for the sake of moments. Each moment leads into the next, which isn't the case here. And, again, some of those action moments in this film are so hastily set up that it's actually lazy. An entire action sequence happens because some guy had headphones on. That's pathetic when compared to the original and how it wove together all the reasons that the park would fall to the dinosaurs.

Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm

And the characters are hardly as compelling. Ian Malcolm returns, and he's fine, I guess, though he's basically just turned into a one-liner machine, which would be fine if the lines themselves were good, but they're hardly worth remembering. Case in point: I can only remember one of them, and I'm positive there were at least five here. That said, I do like his relationship with his daughter, and even with Sarah. Speaking of Sarah, she's played well enough by Moore, but I just do not like this character. She makes so many poor decisions throughout the film that I can't be on board with her. Taking a wailing baby T. rex back to your base camp is stupid, especially since her whole theory was that T. rex had paternal instincts and would obviously search out their baby. And, then, an entire action scene happens and someone dies because she doesn't answer the phone. But, by far, the worst offense is when she gets T. rex blood on her jacket, and despite knowing the T. rex would become fiercely territorial, keeps wearing the jacket for a whole day, maybe more, allowing the T. rex to track down the camp, which leads to the deaths of dozens of people. And, I know that in the previous review, I mentioned that people making the wrong choice is fine if its a character flaw, but this is absolutely not that. She's supposed to be an expert on observing predators in the wild, apparently having decades of experience in the field, so why does she keep making these amateur mistakes? It's saying something that she causes more deaths than Dennis Nedry in the first film, and he's supposed to be the antagonist of his film. The other characters are fine enough, Vince Vaughn is pretty good, though by far my favourite character is Richard Schiff as Eddie. I don't know what it is, he just felt so natural here.

Julianne Moore as Sarah Harding

The final place this film falls flat is in its environmental messages its trying to get across. Putting aside the fact that it can be somewhat ham-fisted at times, the actions of the characters in the film almost paint the opposite message. The hunters are the ones that save the hero characters from certain death, and it's the hero characters who are opposed to hunting that keep putting the hunters in imminent mortal danger. Along with the bloody jacket from earlier, Vince Vaughn's character actively goes out of his way to take away as many of the hunters' defences as possible. Yes, bullets aren't a defence, but they sort of are when it's keeping you from being killed yourself as opposed to just killing for the fun of it. Also, the animals the heroes are trying to protect are all blood-thirsty killing machines, and in a survival situation, you kind of need those bullets. The film tries to pull off a 'they're not monsters, they're animals', but the film still treats them like monsters, building suspense towards their arrival the way a monster movie would, and killing innocent civilians. By that point, once they've starting hunting innocent people, you can't really play to that angle anymore. That said, the scene in San Diego is actually very well executed, and once the T. rex is loose in the streets, it's terrifying, but even this moment is undercut by the way they set it up. How the f*** did the T. rex get loose, kill the entire crew (including people in rooms it could not possibly have fit in), and then get itself back into the hull for it to be released later? See what I'm talking about? The entire film is a series of cool moments with very little thought put into actually getting to those moments effectively.

Vince Vaughn as Nick van Owen

That's what stops The Lost World: Jurassic park (1997) from living up to the excitement of the original, or even from being what I'd consider a 'good' movie. I'm willing to judge it a little higher than I probably should just because those moments are effective at times, but you can just look up those individual moments on YouTube and you'd honestly be better off. 4.5/10

Next: Jurassic Park III

Off the Cuff Reviews Jurassic Park (1993)

I'm watching Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom on Sunday for a friend's birthday, and since I've only seen the other Jurassic Park movies once, many years ago, I figured it made sense to rewatch them before going to see the new instalment. And, after re-watching the original Jurassic Park (1993), it's easy to see why this series became so beloved. This is an amazing movie, and it's right up there with some of the best films ever made. Starring Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant, Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Satler, Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm, Bob Peck as Robert Muldoon, Martin Ferrero as Donald Gennaro, B. D. Wong as Dr. Henry Wu, Samuel L. Jackson as Ray Arnold, Wayne Knight as Dennis Nedry, Joseph Mazzello as Tim Murphy, Ariana Richards as Lex Murphy and Richard Attenborough as John Hammond.

Jurassic Park (1993)

The obvious thing to talk about here are the visuals. Honestly, I've seen this movie before and I was still blown away. This film came out 25 years ago, and the effects are still gorgeous. Especially for a movie about dinosaurs hunting people, you want the dinosaurs to look good, but they're not. They're downright phenomenal. I've always been fascinated with dinosaurs and prehistoric life, and seeing these extinct animals brought to life so convincingly is a treat. A combination of animatronics and computer-generation and this film holds up extraordinarily well. For a movie like this, if the dinosaurs are obviously not real, it takes you out of the experience, but these creatures look so lifelike, I could swear they'd actually cloned real dinosaurs just for the film. They're that good. And, speaking of cloning, while it's true that the science used is far from realistic, the explanation given is fine enough for the purposes of the movie. It doesn't hold up in the real world, but it's good enough for us to suspend disbelief.

Tyrannosaurus rex

The soundtrack is another piece of perfection in this film. The main theme is iconic, but all the other tracks are excellent for their purpose in the movie. The tense, foreboding moments, the enigmatic and majestic moments, they all have the perfect music to set the scene and enhance the experience. This is another one for the collection; it might be one of my favourite cinema soundtracks of all time. Not only that, but this film has some of my favourite sequences in cinema history. The T. rex escape, the jeep chase, the first look at dinosaurs, the Velociraptor hatching, the Velociraptor hunt in the kitchen... they're all just executed beautifully. But what's great is that the downtime between dinosaur sequences isn't boring, which could easily have happened. The characters themselves bounce off each other well enough that it keeps you invested in the, let's face it, standard monster-movie plot we're being given. What's great about it, though, is that it doesn't feel standard while you're watching it. And, again, that's a testament to the characters here.

Laura Dern as Ellie Satler and Sam Neill as Alan Grant

The cast here is especially good, and they all fit their characters remarkably well. Sam Neill is probably my personal favourite, and his arc is really well handled. He's really the only one with an arc, apart from Richard Attenborough, who is also pitch-perfect. Laura Dern can sometimes be a little mumbly, but otherwise, she's great as well. Everyone loves to talk about Jeff Goldblum in his role, and of course he's amazing, and as comic relief he's brilliant. What's really impressive, though, is the supporting cast, and how they really stack up to the mains, particularly the child actors. Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards do an excellent job here, and they have a lot to do, since they have to portray a wide range of emotions from childlike wonder right through to sheer terror. Samuel L. Jackson and Wayne Knight are also great in their respective roles, though I always felt I wanted to see more of them.

Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm

There really isn't a lot wrong with this movie, and anything negative I have to say would just be nitpicking. I could talk about how the first 20 minutes feel rushed as anything, but it's all to get the characters onto the island quickly so we can get right to the action, so it's fine. There are also one or two moments where characters don't necessarily make the most intelligent choices for their situation, but any instance of this is a character flaw, not a movie flaw. I feel like people tend to mark a movie down for this sometimes: saying a character didn't make the smartest choice even if it services their character. The biggest example of this is John Hammond not choosing to activate the lysine contingency, even though the fact that he doesn't want the dinosaurs dead is an important aspect of his character, and had he chosen to activate it, that would have gone against who he is. Honestly, like I said, I could nitpick if I wanted to, but the things that are good about this movie are just too good, and any small gripes I could have here and there wouldn't stifle my enjoyment of this movie in any way.

Richard Attenborough as John Hammond

Jurassic Park (1993) is an absolute masterpiece, and I really have nothing negative to say. Watching this movie takes me right back to my childhood, when I would insist on gobbling up each and every piece of dinosaur media I could get my hands on. It might be that sense of nostalgia, but there's really nothing anyone can say that'll get me to change my mind about this film. It's one of the best. 10/10.

Next: The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

Off the Cuff Reviews Incredibles 2 (2018)

So, it didn't take me nearly as long to watch a new movie after my last Marathon Month than it did for after my first. And, I'm really glad I ended up seeing this one, as this was a film that had a lot of hype. 14 years of it. Thankfully, Incredibles 2 (2018) delivers, and while this doesn't quite stand in the pantheon of Pixar's best, it's still a great film. Starring Craig T. Nelson as Bob Parr/Mr. Incredible, Holly Hunter as Helen Parr/Elastigirl, Sarah Vowell as Violet Parr, Huck Milner as Dashiell 'Dash' Parr and Samuel L. Jackson as Lucius Best/Frozone.

Incredibles 2 (2018)

So, this film picks up right where the previous left off. And, I don't just mean that the opening scene is the Underminer fight. I mean, it actually continues the stories told in the original and doesn't just tell the same story again. For a sequel made 14 years after the original, that's a huge feat. And, there are quite a few threads that continue from the first movie. Jack-Jack's powers, Violet and Tony, superhero rights, this feels like a seamless follow-on. You could probably marathon the first movie directly into the second and it would feel incredibly natural. What helps is that the soundtrack is still as amazing as ever, and whenever that main theme plays, it's phenomenal. The first Incredibles movie probably has may favourite soundtrack of any Pixar film, and I'm happy to say that this film's soundtrack is just as strong.

Holly Hunter as Elastigirl

Talking about what's improved here, the animation is expectedly better. This animation style is downright exceptional, and it still feels very 'Brad Bird', in that the characters feel like they were initially hand-drawn and then transformed into 3D figures from there. Of course, the technology's improved, so it goes without saying that the characters look better, but everything from the environments to the super-powers themselves are all stunning. I also feel as though this film delivered more laughs than the original. This is a hilarious movie. Anything that Jack-Jack does is gold, but really, every character gets at least one home-run comedically, and there's thankfully very few jokes that are dumbed down specifically for the kids. It's very accessible, and quite clever at times, with the jabs at society that you'd expect from Brad Bird. The film also explores a few themes that I feel are very relevant to society today. Granted, since it's a kids' film, it's a bit on-the-nose at times, but they're still good themes to explore in a kids' movie, and I'm glad they ended up doing what they did with some of them.

Craig T. Nelson as Bob Parr

The character interactions between the Parr family are still the best thing about this franchise. Right from that first scene with the family taking on the Underminer, the dynamic between them all is on point, and this is another thing that really makes that 14 year gap between the movies seem very insignificant. When the film focuses on their home lives, particularly with Bob at the helm, it's all very nice stuff. There's a side-story with Violet that I particularly enjoy as well, mainly because in a household with three sisters, it was all very relatable. In fact, that's the key word with the family here: relatable. It's the same thing the first movie had on its side: the family felt like a real family. Not everything was always peachy keen or all sunshine and rainbows like you see from a lot of kids' movies. On the other side, the action scenes are all fantastic. They're fast-paced and energetic and take advantage of the fact that it's a cartoon and they push the boundaries of our suspension of disbelief just enough to deliver the goods. Elastigirls' powers are given the focus, and those scenes of her in action are among the best, but what's also great here is the wider variety of powers on display. The first film basically stuck to the family and Frozone, but there are quite a lot of side characters here with some really unique abilities that are great fun to watch in action.

Sarah Vowell as Violet Parr

Alright, so in what areas does this film not quite compare to the original? Well, first and most obviously is the villain. Syndrome was an exceptional villain in the first movie, whereas the villain here is just... fine. They do they're job well enough, and they're threatening enough as a villain, but they never quite reached the heights of Syndrome for me. It also became a little obvious at times, but I'm saying that as a 22-year-old here. If I was a little kid watching this, it might have been more of a surprise. Additionally, while this film was funnier than the first, I feel like the first film had much more heart. Not that there wasn't any care in this one, that's not what I'm saying. There wasn't quite as much emotion here, and the heartfelt scenes they do have are still great, but there weren't quite as many of them as in the original. Finally, and this really isn't a problem, but I feel the need to address it here: there are quite a few instances of the film referencing or calling back to the original, which can be a problem in some sequels when it just devolves into 'Remember this from the last film? Remember this from the original?' Thankfully, it never quite goes to that extreme, and the callbacks they have here all service the plot in some way, so I was fine with it, but if that's not your thing, beware.

The Screenslaver

There could have been so many ways this film would fail after a 14 year wait, but Incredibles 2 (2018) is a brilliant follow-up to a masterpiece of a movie. It's not quite as good as the original for me, but when the bar is that high, there's certainly no shame in a silver medal. 8.5/10.

Watching this film has really made me want to go back through Pixar's catalogue and watch or re-watch their movies. I probably won't devote an entire month to it, primarily because there's not enough films to make up a month but also I won't have the time, so I may just throw a Pixar review in here and there when I can. Be on the lookout for them.