Incredibles 2 Review: 6 Ups & 3 Downs

Downs...

3. The Villain Isn't That Great

Easily the biggest disappointment of Incredibles 2 is that its primary antagonist, a masked supervillain known as The Screenslaver, can't hold a candle to the previous film's far more interesting antagonist, Syndrome.

From Screenslaver's fairly generic ability to enslave humans through TV screens to his over-familiar monologuing about society's overt reliance on technology, it all just feels a bit low-effort and unimaginative.

It doesn't help that Screenslaver will be endlessly compared to Syndrome, who actually felt like a fully fleshed-out character and whose villainy was decidedly more morally ambiguous.

Perhaps appreciating it was a fool's errand to try and one-up Syndrome, writer-director Brad Bird basically decided to not even bother trying. Considering how finessed the movie is in so many other areas, the villain ends up feeling like a bit of a damp squib.