Incredibles 2

Superheroes have never been more incredible!

Disney's first family of super-heroics are back! Just 4 minutes into "Incredibles 2," you'll be asking why it took so long (14 years, in fact) for a sequel to this crowd-pleasing animated blockbuster! Perhaps it had something to do with its director running Tom Cruise around the globe on a mission impossible. Fortunately for movie audiences, Brad Bird pulled it together, including bringing back his star-studded cast.

The action picks up right where the last film ended. After The Incredibles saved the world from the world-dominating efforts of a maniacal mad thinker, supers have re-emerged on the scene after an imposed government exile that has made it illegal for them to use their powers - even if they're fighting off super villains wielding giant power drills that burrow into the bedrock beneath big city banks! Taking down the Underminer lands the Parr family in more hot water: Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) and Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) are accused of causing most of the damage.

Unfortunately for the family of super-powered incredibles, heroes are still outlaws in their contemporary society, but they've found an ally in industrialist Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk) and his tech-savvy sister Evelyn (Catherine Keener), who are determined to remind the world of the importance of superheroes. Their plan is simple: Market superheroes as a vibrant necessity that provide a greater good. Enlisting Elastigirl to his cause, Deavor puts Helen to work immediately, leaving Bob at home to take care of the super kids.

In the midst of this PR campaign to bring the supers out of the dark, a mysterious threat calling itself the "Screenslaver" emerges - a shrouded enemy who is convinced that the culture is at a crossroads. His megalomaniacal conviction is that people don't need heroes to save the day, they need to emerge from behind their ill-gotten comforts and engage in their lives. Screenslaver goes about proving his point by hypnotizing his innocent victims and making them do his dirty work. With Elasitgirl on the case to stop the villain, Bob has his hands full.

Doing his absolute best to keep it all together between adolescent angst and "new math," Bob comes to realize that his entire life has been wrapped up in his super-identity as Mr. Incredible. That becomes all the more apparent when he learns that his dynamic crime-fighting paraphernalia, including his "Incredi-Car," are being sold out from under him. When Elastigirl sends for Mr. Incredible to help bring down Screenslaver, Bob doesn't hesitate.

Little does he know that he is stepping into an elaborate scheme to discredit all supers, and in the final act of "Incredibles 2" it's going to take the might of the next generation of incredibles - including the kids - to help free their parents from the grip of their merciless foe, and ultimately save the day. The pace of the action is as breakneck, as we've come to expect, with a script that is perfectly engaging and witty.

"The Incredibles" arrived on the scene before the iron-clad take over from Marvel Studios that lead to a decade of avenging and web-slinging that has gone on to define the summer blockbuster. The original film appealed greatly to the fandom hungry for genre content, and was especially satisfying, as it introduced a world with a deeply enriched mythology, of which the original wove easily into the sequel to capitalize on. The characters are as endearing as ever. The fact that they've been away for fourteen years becomes apparent very quickly, but they are as familiar as ever!

"Incredibles 2" serves the franchise brilliantly and feels as nostalgic as the original, which made a point out of capturing an era of ideals. (The exact era that the Incredibles inhabit isn't as definable as one might expect; are they a throwback to the Atomic Age?) One thing is clear: "Incredibles 2" is long overdue, and every bit worth the ticket price and extra large order of popcorn.