The Incredibles 2 - When a Sequel Does It Right

I enjoyed The Incredibles, though I only first saw it in 2015 after my husband bought me a Pixar blu-ray box set. I did like it, but I didn't feel like it sparkled all that much or was particularly stand out.

I wasn't blown away by the trailer for the sequel either, and I heard nothing in particular about it, so I assumed it was going to be neither a flop nor a success. Still, we have our Unlimited Cards and it was flipping sweltering in our flat this week so we decided to hide in an air conditioned cinema for an hour or two. 

It. Was. Hilarious.  

I loved it. We weren't bored, we were laughing out loud, we were genuinely entertained. Both of us came out bubbling away at how funny it was and how much better than the original it was.  

Plot: It starts with the end of the first film. There is no time jump - it literally picks up where the last film left off.

Then it peels away, leaving the Incredible family staying in a motel because their house was destroyed, along with their reputations as Supers.  I was amusing myself by whispering Marvel's Civil War parallels at my husband at times, cause it was a similar line of attack.

The character development was brilliant.  Dash is the only character that did not get a lot of growth or definition, but that's because actually, he didn't really need it - it was there as a foil to the family and as a child who is at the age where he's confident and comfortable with himself - "It's part of who I am!" - he was not in any need of a character arc.  

Helen gets ample, and it's really great to see the mother figure going out there and doing the super hero stuff while Dad stays at home to be the care giver. What was REALLY refreshing, despite Brad Bird's general views on feminists and stuff, is that there was no resentment towards Helen for being out there and him thinking her JOB was to be at home. No no, he was just resentful that he wasn't particularly good at it and he didn't like the implication that the thing he IS good at (saving people with brute strength) was done in a more sloppy manner than his wife, whose skill set is more adept at keeping collateral damage to a minimum.  We get to see Helen and how she operates, and how she gets to do the things that she has wanted to do but hasn't, because she's naturally the better care-giver at home - and partly out of societal expectation, too.

 What is great - and as a teacher with the inability not to relate things to what she is trying to teach her kids - is that we see Bob not giving up or half-arsing his parental role because he finds it difficult or it didn't come naturally, we see him putting more effort in and trying his best to GET BETTER - he sees that just because he's not good at something doesn't mean he can't get good at something.  Ok, so he is more comfortable being Mr Incredible and he misses doing things he was good at naturally, but he never complains about being at home, in fact he gets proper stubborn about it when people offer to help - he doesn't want to fail at being a stay-at-home dad. It makes him persevere and work harder at it. THAT is the sort of male role model we want to see on t.v. and film.  Also Craig T Nelson's voice acting is hilarious and brilliant and I love him.

Jack Jack gets a lot of the arcs, because being a baby, he is higher maintenance, and of course being the child of Supers, it's even funnier if he's a high maintenance baby with RIDONKULOUS powers.

Violet gets a pretty solid arc too - for her, there's a level of coming of age. She is a teenager and trying to get through high school life, while developing her place in the superhero family. She has her powers but also experiences for herself the negative impact it can have on her social life - going as far as to renounce her powers (another funny scene involving her costume). By the end of it, she matures enough, in the same way that Bob does, to see that her skill set means that she is best equipped for particular jobs - that is how teams work. It's not about glory or being the best at everything, it's about playing a part to get the task done in the best way possible, and if that means taking a "back seat" during something - be it allowing someone else spearhead a PR campaign to get Supers legalised again or allowing Dash to run around while you create a shield to protect everybody else - then that does not mean you're less important or worthy.  There were lots of great take-aways from the film that I fully intend to use but will probably forget by the time term begins again in September.

The only downside or mild negative, though potentially interesting, is the strange almost feminist coding of the villain.  I mean, it was pretty obvious who it was going to be from the get-go, but the way it's done is rather similar to the way villains tend to be queer-coded, only with a feminist bent? I don't know if that makes sense, I'm typing at 3am because I can't sleep.  It fits with Bird's general outlook, let's just put it that way.

Still, it is a solid film, I give it a 4 or 5 out of 5. Honestly, go and see if it you haven't already!

Blind Date with a Books #3, 4 and 5!

My, my I HAVE been rubbish at keeping up with this. In my defense though, there was a kindle sale and a Waterstones sale at the same time!

My second blind date turned out to be "The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde.

"Meet Thursday Next, literary detective without equal, Fear or boyfriend.  This is another 1985, where London's criminal gangs have moved into the lucrative literary market, and Thursday Next is on the trail of the new crime wave's Mr Big.
Acheron Hades has been kidnapping characters from works of fiction and holding them to ransom. Jane Eyre is gone. Missing.

Thursday sets out to find a way into the book to repair the damage. But solving crimes against literature isn't easy when you also have to find time to halt the Crimean War, persuade the man you love to marry you and figure out who really wrote Shakespeare's plays. 

Perhaps today itsn't going to be Thursday's day. Join her in a truly breathtaking adventure, and find out for yourself. Fiction will never be the same again..."

My bestie remembers reading this and promises me it's as weird and fun as the blurb claims it is. And I believe her - I get the vibe that while it might start off a bit slow and clunky, it will evolve into a book packed with loads of literary in-jokes that I will both get and appreciate.

But I just haven't been in the mood.  I know I'll enjoy it, but it's one of those books where, at the period of the academic year that it arrived, I just didn't have the headspace for.  So I confess I ended up reading quick reads - books I've read once in the past but not repeatedly.

So watch this space - I'll probably read it on the plane to Japan, or, if there's no room in my hand luggage, when I get back and SHOULD be reading my SENCo course materials...!


Book number 3 was "It's Not Me, It's You" by Mhairi McFarlane

"How do you start again when everything falls apart?
When Delia's life is turned inside out - from a disasterous proposal to resignation-worthy team-building exercises - moving to a new city looks like the answer. But this has its own measure of problems, and Delia finds herself in a distinctly shady job where telling the truth seems to be entirely optional. As an investigative journalist starts digging, Delia must ask herself where her loyalties lie - and if this life is truly better than the one she left behind.

A moving, hilarious and insightful tale that questions what you do when your life is broken: do you try to put the pieces back where they were or  build something new?"

This was EXACTLY the sort of book I had headspace for - I read it really quickly. It made me laugh, giggle, snort-cackle (that's a think, honestly) and cry. I was crying over my dinner while reading it and my husband looked over at me and (hypocritically, if we're being 100% truthful, which we are) half-mocked me for it. Dammit, the bleep was bleeping and it was really sad! (See how I remain spoiler free?)

It is a relatable protagonist, and I can see how easily it can go wrong. I too have been in an almost similar situation, only events happened in different orders and I was at uni, not with a job. And while my ending was different, it was weird to see how things would have been different if the people involved had been just a bit more childish or more broken or whatever. I dunno. Probably read more into it than there is.  I got angry for her and I willed her to just quit her job and do the right thing, at the same time understanding why she wasn't doing what I was telling her to. (And not just because she is a bunch of words on a page, nyeh nyeh.)

It's a fun caper and while I think the publicist job she got in London is a bit exaggerated, I can 100% see it happening on a smaller scale!

Tropes wise, it's pretty formulaic - it's pretty obvious at the start who the new love interest will be and how utterly Pride and Prejudiced it is. There was one point in the book, though, where I did wonder if the author would go against the mold! As a hopeless romantic I'm glad she didn't, but in other ways it would have been interesting if she had. That said, with the characters as she developed them, I would not have been sold on the other ending.

Do I recommend this book? Yes.  Especially if you're going on holiday this summer and want something easy to read. It's thick but it's pretty easy to digest. I enjoyed it and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'm tempted to read more work by the author - I hear her other books are pretty well rated.


Blind Date Book number 4:  "Still Life with Woodpecker" by Tom Robbins.

"Still Life With Woodpecker is sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the conflict between social activism and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders. It also deals with the problems of redheads."

Yeah.... Nope. The blurb makes it sound more whimsical and fun but I could not get past the first 3 or 4 pages, which is about 7 chapters or parts. 

I'll not write it off yet, it's probably a headspace thing... cause the blurb is intriguing enough but it's one of those where I need to get into the zone. It feels quite stream of consciousness-y and not all the of the streams are linked or about the same thing. Each section or chapter or part of Phase 1 so far seems to be jumping between subjects, which isn't a bad thing, but the style in which its written is so experimental that I wasn't having any of it when I unwrapped the book.  As I flick through the book and read random pages, it seems like bits of narrative that I can get behind, but the way it's written means I'd have to work at it to get there - something I'm not particularly in the mood to do! #lazyendoftermteacher

So that's my update.

So far my dalliance with Blind Date with a Book has been a 50/50 success rate! (I'm not counting the Princess Bride, as I bought that separate to the subscription)
I should be receiving August's offering very soon!