Story

The Parr family has a problem. While trying to prevent another villain from bank robbery they not only let him escape, but also inadvertently destroy half of the city. Public outcry over the actions of Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, and their children – Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack – leads authorities to shut down all superhero activities and force all superheroes to live their secret identity lives forever. Bob and Helen are devastated by the idea of going back to pretending to be regular people, when they are contacted by a billionaire Winston Deavor, who is a great supporter of superheroes. He has a plan to make superheroes legal again. For that they will have to change people’s perception about superheroes. And the ideal candidate for this PR campaign is Elastigirl. However, Helen is reluctant about leaving her husband and kids. Albeit his frustration, Bob persuades Helen to accept the offer, promising to take care of the kids while she is out, saving the World. After all, how hard is it looking after the kids?

Elastigirl rushes to save the World!

Writing

Of course, Bob is wrong. Film takes two distinct separate paths after this. We follow the adventures of Helen as Elastigirl, trying to regain superheroes their name and fighting a mysterious villain. The other storyline is Bob realizing the true meaning of parenting. Not only he has to deal with teenage Violet, but also keep troublemaker Dash at bay. All while taking care of infant Jack-Jack, who turns out to have incredible superpowers. Plot constantly shifts between these two narratives. While Helen’s narrative is full with action scenes and adventures, Bob’s storyline has comical and down-to-Earth approach.

With regard to specifics, I found the comedy part very well written. The jokes didn’t feel forced or fake. They were genuinely funny and I also specifically enjoyed the fact that jokes were situational and totally kids oriented. None of the jokes were due to any obscure pop culture reference, a witty remark or some sarcastic whip. This is what the family movie needs. Also, I think first time in a long while in a Pixar/Disney movie I didn’t see any mentally challenged comic relief pet/animal. I have no clue what the fascination of Disney is with having those animals around (rooster in Moana, dog in Coco, etc.), but “Incredibles 2” doesn’t need such a devise.

Mr.Incredible tries to keep his sanity.

I also enjoyed that film stays light by not pushing a heavy social message onto a viewer. There are no fake drama moments, no artificial tearjerkers. And while I am sure a lot of viewers are expecting “Finding Nemo” or “Coco” like emotional connection, “Incredibles 2” will most likely disappoint them. But why should Pixar include these moments into every film? Why not make a truly enjoyable film that doesn’t rely on anyone dying or losing memory or what not?

One more thing that is worth mentioning is that “Incredibles 2” is one of very rare superhero films that don’t concentrate on a villain. So many superhero movies these days thrive on bad guys (see “Avengers: Infinity War“, “Wonder Woman” or even “Dark Knight Rises“). Instead, the main plot of the film is about being a family.

Directing

Brad Bird returns to directing Pixar movie, first time since “Ratatouille”. And what a return that is. Since his brief stint as a live action director (which also included his debut film “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol“) we can assuredly say that he learned new tricks and perfected old ones. While his old animated films had satisfactory action scenes, they were never masterful. In “Incredibles 2” Bird’s action sequences are precise and full of excitement. Fights are well choreographed and neatly edited. As a matter of fact, I think “Incredibles 2” have the best action sequences in history of Hollywood animation.

The constant shift of narrative from Bob to Helen and back is what makes “Incredibles 2” work. Of course, two narratives eventually diverge into one, but for the majority of the film we have balanced action/no action staging which doesn’t bore the viewer. This all despite the fact that film is whooping 118 minutes long (longest for any Pixar film). I was pleasantly surprised that the long runtime never actually affected the experience.

Summary

“Incredibles 2” is a rare family movie that will satisfy every single family member, old or young. By masterfully pacing comedy with action sequences, Brad Bird gives us a truly enjoyable experience that never bores during a long runtime. And while film doesn’t have a big emotional reveals or tearjerker moments, that has been so over-utilized by Pixar and Disney, “Incredibles 2” shows that you don’t need formulaic gimmicks and tricks to make the film entertaining.

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Story

Thousands years ago dogs ruled the Earth. And then cat-loving Kobayashi clan appeared and announced war on dogs. They were able to kill almost all dogs, but one young boy stands up to the Kobayashi clan and kills their leader. He then announces dogs to be friends. For thousand years, Kobayashi family kept grudge on that. And finally they are able to achieve revenge. In present day mayor of Megasaki City, Kobayashi, announces that dogs have widespread dog flu and are turning rabid. In order to save population he orders all dogs to be shipped to Trash Island. As a fair example, he sends his nephew Atari’s dog, Spots, no an island as a first dog to be banished.

Six months later chaos rules Trash Island. Dogs form packs to survive on garbage being du

mped to island. One of these packs is the collection of five alpha dogs, Rex, King, Duke, Boss, and Chief. One day they see a small airplane crashlanding on the island. They discover young boy flying it. He is Atari Kobayashi, he came to island to locate his dog, Spots. Despite protests of Chief (who among the group was the only stray dog) pack decides to help Atari find his beloved pet.

Dogs discover Atari

Writing

“Isle of Dogs” has a fair share of classic chaos and humor that Wes Anderson films usually have. However, the story seemed bleak to me. I don’t know, maybe because I am that weird guy who is not a pet person at all. Should I’ve been a dog lover to appreciate this film? I am not sure. Regardless, I was surprised to see how uncharacteristically boring and dull film seemed to me and how the other people in audience laughed every time there was a stupid dog joke (“If you see that bitch, Nutmeg…” referring to a female dog) or awed when something cute happened, like dog liking Atari’s hand. To me, it was all lost.

Character motivation was ridiculous at best Chief is a stray dog, he doesn’t want to help Atari. He is persuaded to join only because some bitch (female dog) Nutmeg tells him it would be nice to help Atari because “he is 12 years old and dogs love that.” There is whole storyline (of course) of Chief becoming domesticated and accepting Atari as a master. Why should he? Film implies every dog needs a master. That might be true in real life, but from proud humanized Chief’s perspective it seemed degrading. And Atari does nothing to gain Chief’s acceptance. All he does is order him stuff and then tell him to lick his hand. Come on!

There is incredible amount of supporting characters, most of whom, don’t even need to be there. Are they there to accommodate all friends and collaborators of Wes Anderson? It feels like that, because most of them don’t drive the story forward and literally have two or three sentences to say. Like there is literally three translators and a narrator. Why? Story wanders back and forth a lot, is broken down to chapters (surprise!) and the only thing keeping it together is directorial job by Wes Anderson.

Spots alone on the Trash Island

Directing

Film is full of Anderson‘s (now cliche) elements. From weird framing, funny camera angles to “surprise” reveals and uneasy resolutions. Everything screams his name. He is able to keep the story coherent, even with a messy plot and incredible amount of supporting cast. My biggest complain is style he chose. Film is stop-motion animation, which a lot of directors choose to use due to three dimensional aspect. Instead, Anderson places the characters on a same plane, usually facing camera either dead on or on profile. This all makes the sets very, very 2D. Why then use stop-motion animation to achieve “South Park” effect? Seems like total waste of opportunity.

Summary

The heartfelt message, emotional connection, superb humor and charming characters – everything the people see in this film – failed to impress me at all. To me, film had messy plot with weird motivations by heroes, huge cast that was distracting main plot and ridiculous ending.

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Essentially I had no idea about back story of Tintin and Co., and I’m sure 99% of my readers don’t know either, so here’s a short version of the plot. Movie follows young (teenage? adult? I have no idea, he looks babyface like DiCaprio) journalist Tintin and his loyal friend – dog named Snowy (who actually is smarter than everyone in the movie), as they discover an ancient ship model of a famous 17th century ship “Unicorn”, that according to the legend was sunk with “secret cargo” aboard. Out of the blue, this replica model gets into hands of Tintin and, like everyone was waiting for just this magic moment, an epic adventure including pirates, ancient treasures, puzzles, drunken escapades, crazy voyages etc. unfolds in alarmingly fast manner.

All this is done with the same precision and orientation as Indiana Jones movies. Well, at least it was intended that way. I don’t know how to interpret the acting, since its 100% animation. So I’m just going to comment on the animation and directing part.

Movie is 100% adventure, and in my opinion it pushes the boundary some times. I consider the best adventure movie to be first Indiana Jones (“Raiders of the Lost Ark“), and even there Spielberg used overlapping FAST-SLOW-FAST formula, which in return gave the viewer the chance to take a breathe from long action sequences and immerse into incredible puzzles. In “Tintin” the slow part was very small and the fast action part occupied much bigger section of the movie. I assume leaving the movie for the restroom break and coming back 2 minutes later, you wouldn’t be able to understand WHY, WHAT and WHERE is going on.

That being said, the movie is one great rollercoaster. 3D animation is on top, sometimes you can even confuse it with live action sequences, and the only thing that keeps you from falling for it is cartoonish characters. Very nice usage of 3D projection techniques actually makes “The Adventures of Tintin” the best one since “Avatar”. Although I would recommend to watch it carefully, I experienced some teary eyes due to concentration on 3D glasses like I never had before.

Overall I enjoyed it. I really wish there was something more to it, I kind of felt dissatisfied by the ending. So I’m giving 7 out of 10. Definitely a good movie to watch.

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