Hooray, it’s school holiday movie season! So imagine my devastation when the movie I was most looking forward to, Teen Titans Go To The Movies (seriously, I love that show), has been delayed until September. September! Bah. Still, it’s a good season: Incredibles 2, which I saw last weekend, and Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation. Yes, it’s a bit ridiculous that all the movies are sequels, isn’t it? But since the first Incredibles was excellent and the first two Hotel Transylvania movies were a bunch of fun, I am absolutely not complaining. (Any excuse for popcorn, anyway.)

Incredibles 2 follows straight on from the first movie, which saw a family of superheroes save the world (well, America, which I’d advise not to live in as it’s constantly being attacked in movies) and ended with a villain called The Underminer drilling up through the road in front of son Dash’s school’s athletics meeting. The family puts their masks on, and…roll credits! Well, here, they have their masks on, are prepared to take on The Underminer and, well, it doesn’t go perfectly. The family finds themselves living in a hotel room with everyone mad at them again, and Violet’s been spotted without her mask on by Tony, the boy she’d just built up the confidence to speak to, and everything’s a mess. That is, until Mr Incredible and Elastigirl get called into a meeting with their buddy Frozone–they’ve been noticed by the wealthy tech tycoon Winston Deavor, and his inventor sister Evelyn Deavor, and the two of them want to make superheroes legal again. They have a plan, but mostly it involves Elastigirl, who’s much less destructive than Mr Incredible, which leaves Mr Incredible at home with the kids. I mean, that’s fine, but since the movie’s set in the 50s (kind of), dads were not always that hands-on. So he’s got to figure out how to help sulky teenager Violet, semi-attentive student Dash, and Jack-Jack, who has just started figuring out his powers. Turns out, there’s a lot of them. Turns out, the villain Elastigirl needs to fight is very, very, dangerous. Turns out, THIS IS EXCELLENT FUN! I’m saying that last bit like it’s a surprise, but it’s really not.

Incredibles 2 is a really dynamic, super-exciting movie with train chase scenes, out-of-control yachts, a bunch of new superheroes, a bad guy who is fast, sneaky, and can get right in your head. (Serious for a moment: there’s a lot of flashing screens, so if you’re prone to seizures with that kind of thing, I’d stay away from this one.) The bad guy, Screenslaver, is capable of mind control, and it’s deliciously scary to watch. This was so much fun that when the final chaotic scene ended, the whole cinema I was in sighed with relief, then laughed. Jack-Jack is absolutely the best thing about this entirely great movie, as he wages his own war against neighbourhood critters and winning over the fastidious fashion designer, Edna Mode.

On the downside, there were some scenes with a bit too much talking, and I figured out the bad guy early on, which I usually don’t do because I like to be surprised rather than nutting out what’s happening. Still, it’s a small complaint, and I cannot wait to go back and see it again, since we promised some friends we’d see it with them…and maybe we’ll see it a third time. Just to be very, very sure of this review, of course.