The Parr family is back in Brad Bird's Incredibles 2, a meticulous revisitation of the 2004 Pixar classic. As Mashable's Angie Han points out, 2018 is certainly not short on superhero movies. But Bird and company manage to avoid the pitfalls of over saturation and instead make their mark on super history once more.

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By and large, early viewers are enjoying their second helping of the crimefighting family—and the improved animation that comes with 14 years of advancing technology. But many critics make it clear that the sequel (once again) isn't quite as good as the original.

Check out some of these critics' takes on Incredibles 2 below.

The action sequences are excellent

Darren Franich, Entertainment Weekly:

No joke: These are the best superhero action sequences in our superhero-drowned decade. You figured Bird might be trepidatious returning to this material. Since 2004, there have been untold eons of comic book heroism adapted to the bigscreen, two Fantastic Fours, three different Spider-Men, the ongoing threat of a Jared-Leto Joker film. But the writer-director brings a snazzy Pop Art kineticism to his heroes’ journey. When Incredibles pal Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) casts his Iceman powers, the furious density is astonishing. He’s not just casting freeze-rays. It looks like he’s whipping up an Everest. And there’s a character whose power seems to be vomiting lava; I’ve never seen prettier lava.

Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter:

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There to thwart [the villain] are Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) and Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), the latter displaying an astounding flexibility that goes beyond what she revealed the first time around in an elaborate opening sequence designed to announce that the Incredibles are BACK.

The role-reversal plot is receiving mixed reactions

Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair:

I say retrograde because, well, it is—this trope of the bumbling dad overwhelmed by the complexities of keeping house and raising children, while seeing his true place as out there in the world doing big things. It’s an old idea, but it’s also not one that’s yet become entirely foreign to heterosexual parents. And so Bird delves in, teasing at this familiar stuff winningly and squarely. Squarely enough that the plot given to teenage Violet (Sarah Vowell) involves heartsickness about a boy at a school, while her baby brother Jack-Jack emerges as the potential-laden apple of his father’s eye. Maybe I’m shadowboxing, swinging at problems that aren’t really there. But from a certain angle, Incredibles 2 looks a little too slavish to creaky conventions.

Meg Downey, Comic Book Resources:

Now, on paper (and in the trailers) it looks like this is a setup for a lot of comedy about Bob being jealous of his wife, or of Helen feeling guilty about pursuing her own career rather than staying home with the kids. Yes, there is someof that present — but neither Bob nor Helen really undergo that particular arc. Thankfully, Incredibles 2is much more self aware, and artfully dodges a lot of the tired tropes associated with husband-wife role-swaps. Instead, it uses the change in status quo to tell a genuinely heartwarming story of personal growth for every member of the family as they learn to adapt to change.

Owen Gleiberman, Variety:

Each story point hits us with its overly calculated “relevance.” Bob’s awkwardness as a nurturer in the brave new world of dads-as-homemakers; Helen’s proud post-feminist advancement over her husband; the ominous threat of whatever comes through the computer screen — it’s all a bit too thought out, and maybe a tad behind the curve. In “The Incredibles,” the thriller plot was the vehicle through which the Parrs discovered the meaning of using their powers: of being themselves. In “Incredibles 2,” they save the day once more, but emotionally they’re just going through the motions.

Jack-Jack is a highlight

Robert Abele, The Wrap:

For us, though, it’s a domestic-comedy motherlode, especially when, in a side-splitting riff on toddler terror, the emerging, seemingly uncontrolled, multiple powers of Jack-Jack — first shown at the end of “The Incredibles” — turn him into the de facto ruler of the household. Between his explosively inconvenient gifts (best shown in a raucous tussle with a raccoon) and the animation team’s near-vaudevillian rendering of his googly-eyed reactions and blissful gibberish, Jack Jack is easily the cute-ferocious humor superpower of “Incredibles 2.”

David Ehrlich, IndieWire:

Whether trying to help his son Dash (Huck Milner) with math homework or encouraging his shy daughter Violet (Sarah Vowell) to talk to her crush, Bob finds all the excitement he can handle under one roof. And that’s before Jack-Jack starts teleporting to other dimensions, or — in one of Pixar’s funniest gags — using his superpowers to battle the persistent raccoon who lives in the backyard. By all rights, the Jack-Jack stuff should be pandering and insufferable, but Bird’s enthusiasm for the character is contagious, and he knows that every parent can relate to the boy’s ingenuity for chaos.

David Edelstein, Vulture:

I won’t spoil any of the setpieces but will note the existence of one showstopper: a slapstick sequence in which baby Jack-Jack is provoked by a raccoon (they are provocative creatures) into exercising his powers for the first time. As with everything else, Bird’s timing makes even what’s expected galvanically funny and what’s unexpected volcanically so. 

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