BurpDoodle: Edna Mode and Voyd / Incredibles 2 Movie
Rough BurpDoodle: Edna Mode and Voyd / Incredibles 2 Movie
Watched this over my break last week and I enjoyed the family superhero drama. Brilliant design, visuals and character moments!
And quite nostalgic and I loved Edna’s return 😉
SPOILER TALK below the cut as I felt mixed about the narrative.
SPOILER RAMBLE:
So things I liked:
- Edna and Jack Jack moments with Bob
- Bob and Violet moment where he apologises. Awww :’)
- Bob and Jack Jack moments. Jack Jack is just cute.
- Bob complaining about maths – speaking as a former Maths teacher it amused me
- Screenslaver as a concept since it’s already quite real – we use and depend on technology at an increasing rate for better or for worse
- Helen’s action scenes with Screenslaver, the train and cage match
- Screenslaver’s monologue as Helen tracks him down
- Jack Jack versus Trash Raccoon moments
- Frozone is still super cool and a good, confident friend
- Voyd is the awkward superhero who’s working on her confidence – I didn’t fully relate because I don’t really gush over people as a fan. But I do relate to wanting to be of value and helpful but not feeling like you’re enough yet.
- That Winston wasn’t part of the Screenslaver scheme but…he’s rich so he’ll get his sister out of jail and use her technology for his money making needs. Since the beginning, he is doing this for his own gain and getting attention by streaming Elastigirl’s point of view.
- Helen and Evelyn’s discussion about their philosophies was cool
- Bob letting go of his ego and strives to be the best stay at home dad he could manage despite his shortcomings
- How it’s established early that Evelyn and Winston are at odds with their parents
- Super stylish and those colours – visually it’s amazing and not heavily focused on how realistic things are 😀
What’s interesting:
- What they were trying to do with Evelyn as the mastermind of Screenslaver was commendable…but it didn’t feel enough. Her backstory with seeing the parents’ death differently from Winston was somewhat thin and emotionally charged? She’s doing all this with her time, intelligence and abilities with loads of diligence, causing casualties along the way just so she can ensure people don’t rely on super heroes to save them. So she becomes a villain herself?! She has no problem using people or killing them to prove her point. I can’t seem to buy it. I’m trying to understand it :<
- That said her using technology and media demonstrates how humans rely on technology too much as well [which resonates in our real world]. The convenient option. Similar to how Evelyn hates humanity’s dependence on supers in the past. Some degree of hypocrisy here. Perhaps she sees technology and media as tools to be manipulated just like how she treats Supers with mind controlling goggles. The fact that real Supers can’t be used as tools to serve makes her want to eliminate that option for everybody else in society? If she doesn’t want people to call Supers for help…then what about police? Firefighters? Paramedics? It’s like the first movie where Syndrome wants to make everyone Super thus make “no one special” which I felt made a stronger point. I feel like reason has gone out the window.
- How did Screenslaver aka the Pizza delivery man have those moves?? I don’t feel like he’s a normal human. Compare this to how Evelyn mind controls Supers and uses their existing abilities to her advantage.
- We never see what Evelyn does for her job which is suspicious – she just always seems tired
- How I feel it’s underdeveloped with many themes going on…I was left wondering what to get of it. It feels more aligned to being an episodic series than a movie in order to flesh out the family drama and philosophies this movie explores to a more deeper, satisfying level. There was so much potential threads to explore and it felt like an entertaining mess, narrative wise.
- Jack Jack moments are all comedy, entertainment time filler…which was welcome as Bob and the family learns how to deal with his growing powers
- I don’t feel like Helen had much of a character arc…she stays the same with her outlook on life and she knows she’s awesome and does things with less destruction in her wake. Maybe the fact that she’s letting go of her family duties to Bob and trusting in the abilities of her family better [even though the latter was proven in the first movie]? I didn’t really emotionally care about her fight with Screenslaver that much aside from watching cool fighting scenes and watching her discuss with Bob about their family circumstances since the Underminer. I know she got this. So I wasn’t invested if that makes sense…it’s a superhero job thing for her. I only started caring with Screenslaver/Evelyn when Bob got mind controlled too.
- The fact that there’s a subset and minority of humans with better abilities and who value equality, justice and protecting the weak…the Supers who are struggling to be accepted by society. It begs the question on what’s based on talent and what you’re born with versus your own merit, abilities and motivations.
- I feel like Evelyn didn’t make her point across and it didn’t influence Helen in any way. It was just them headbutting each other with their differing ideals. Character development with Evelyn didn’t happen too much either. It’s unsatisfying the more I think about it.
- Why is Violet’s crush, such a boring character…to contrast with her identity? He feels underdeveloped as a person. I don’t even remember his name. We don’t know his family or friends or what he likes or anything. And Violet turns into a *not shy* person and becomes grumpy and sad at her predicament. She initiates things with him too while he seems to not care as much as she does with his laid back attitude.
- The fact the movie focuses on the family dynamic firstmost but not every family member felt equally fleshed out. Like Dash learning Maths and taking back Bob’s car. Violet was just frustrated with her date forgetting her and smoothed it out with her dad. It’s difficult. Yes not every character needs to be equally developed but I felt mixed.
- I guess it feels like episode 2 of a TV series than movie number 2 with a memorable standalone story.
- How the flashing screens is a huge thing in the story for the Screenslaver plot. I was wishing they used less seizure-inducing portrayals so that people who can’t stand those effects can watch the movie too 🙁
- It emphasises the importance and struggle of family teamwork. It first starts off with Helen/Elastigirl saving things on her own without her family and more efficiently to prove public perception wrong. Then it was revealed to be a staged set up, invalidating her cool solo endeavours. Finally they worked together to save the day towards the end.
- How it’s so obvious who the villain is. Which made the movie’s focus more on the family and bracing on what happens when things fall apart. It was more of the matter of “please don’t make Winston part of this too”. Evelyn as a name was super telling. I don’t know if that was a good thing or not but I didn’t mind.
- If they did the Supers Reality TV show story idea for this movie to make commentary of Superhero movie buzz we have in the real world, that would be interesting.
- And the other Supers…they’re pretty boring in design 🙁 I don’t know if their characters were even necessary. The only stand out one is Voyd and she looked super modern compared to the era this film is based on.
- I guess all the emotional deeper character development with the family lies in the first film. This film tries to do many things thematically with the law/supers, society/convenience, being a parent, being the Super hero, use of technology/screens, teamwork, etc I didn’t get a memorable message out of this.
Overall, it was an incredible movie but I’m left feeling mixed!
I’m probably wrong – I just brain dumped my thoughts here (:
I enjoyed it though! Entertaining movie.
Maybe you have answers to my questions!