Incredibles 2 is Dark, Timely, & Awesome

I wasn’t feelin’ that great and I needed something to cheer me up. My wife suggested Incredibles 2; I concurred. We watched in bed until she fell asleep. A few minutes later, I got out of bed, walked to the living room, and finished it.

I like it better than the first one. It’s dark as hell and funny. Supers are illegal and the black-ops program funding the operation is being shut down. Their powers make them uniquely capable of stopping bad events from happening, but politicians fear that power. When a cost-benefit analysis is done, it’s hard to tell which side, if any, the Supers are on: they cause a lot of damage and don’t always catch the bad guys in the act. The system has also evolved beyond their super skillset. As far as the government is concerned, the events they work so hard to stop should have been allowed to happen because everything’s insured.

In Incredibles 2, Good is misunderstood and Evil is unnoticed. The film’s heroes (the Incredibles) and villain (Screenslaver) also share a common enemy: the people they serve.

The war both sides are raging extends beyond state lines and country borders. It’s a battle that’s been fought since the beginning of time, and in this universe, politicians have decided the best way to fight evil is to take away its arch-rival by outlawing superheroes (people who do good just because it's right).

The public and private sectors don’t agree on this. In order to make Supers legal again, a billionaire telecom executive recruits the Incredibles (specifically, Elastigirl) to work private security. Using the company’s technology and reach, its CEO, Winston Deavor, plans to change people’s perception of superhero work by capturing their tremendous feats on camera and turning them into influencers.

The problem is, Good needs the existence of Evil to tell its story. And in Incredibles 2, Evil is the person in control of the media. That person, it’s revealed, is Evelyn Deavor, the underappreciated half of DevTech, the company at the forefront of the legalization of Supers. Her mastery of design and technology is what allows her brother, Winston, to sell a valuable product. Like Supers, Evelyn never quite gets the credit she deserves because her role isn't forward-facing. She’s a creator and a doer, like Supers. But, if Supers are allowed into the light, that further assures people without “special” powers--people that don’t instantly command attention--will be kept in the dark.

Evelyn creates a character, Screenslaver, to serve as the villain Supers need to prove their worth and change the law. She does so using hypnosis technology she created, which leaves subjects controlled by their screens. She creates events where Supers are allowed to be the stars, then attempts to use her hypnosis technology to control the message: Supers are superior and unappreciated. Once legal, they’ll only serve themselves. The world is theirs.

In Incredibles 2, Evil attempts to sow distrust by manipulating people’s perception of events, using powerful technology, which can also be used to promote Good. Released in 2018, the film remains as timely as ever. In general, we are glued to our screen, bombarded by media from all different sources, with conflicting agendas and unclear motives. We want to believe certain things, but we really can’t be sure. Sticking to a belief nowadays, inevitably, seems to require being able to look away from the screen and coming to one’s own conclusion. Fundamentally, we may recognize the differences between Good and Evil, but if Evil is allowed to tell the story, it becomes less clear who the heroes and villains are.