Obligatory Spoiler Warning. Though the box office says you’ve probably already seen Incredibles 2.

Before I start talking about the movie, though, a couple of comments about the stuff that aired before the movie. No, not the commercials. I ignored them, as I generally do. And I did it so successfully that Maggie had to point out the Hyundai commercial was filmed a couple of blocks away from the house I grew up in.

Do we really need another remake of The Grinch? Apparently someone thought we did. Come on, gang, give it a rest. If you have to do a Suess movie–and I think that’s a perfectly legitimate idea–there are plenty of his books you haven’t touched. I’m not sure there’s enough in One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish to justify a full-length feature, but how about Bartholomew and the Oobleck (worth it for the title alone) or And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street?

Does it add anything to know the Grinch is down on Christmas because he never had one in the orphanage? No. No, it doesn’t. Sucking pickles and putting them back in the jar isn’t particularly funny. Certainly not enough to warrant that bit showing up in every trailer so far.

The audience seemed disinterested. I regard that as a healthy development, and I hope it means the film bombs come November.

Moving on.

Completely at the other end of the spectrum was Bao, the short film that’s showing before the feature. Despite being aimed more at the parents in the audience than their kids, it drew rapt attention from the entire room. The universal gasp of horror at the climax was the kind of applause that’s better than cheers and clapping because it proves that everyone was invested in the characters. Simply amazing engagement in five minutes of wordless film. And then it nailed the ending as well.

Big kudos to the director, Domee Shi, and the entire crew.

And that, unfortunately, brings us to Incredibles 2. Or rather, that brings us to the “We’re sorry it took us so long to make this film” bit that preceded the movie. “We wanted to make sure we got it right.”

Sorry, guys. I said “unfortunately” because, frankly, you didn’t get it right.

Every reviewer has pointed out that putting the final battle after the emotional climax means the fight comes as an afterthought. The audience doesn’t care by that point. The Parrs have already reconciled.

And then the film compounds the problem by splitting up the family for the supposedly-climactic scene, instead of showing them working as a team. What were they thinking?

Mind you, it doesn’t help that the solution to the big problem–the ship bearing down on the city–was so stupidly done. Stopping the ship was the right answer; turning it was dumb. Can’t get to the engine room door to shut it down? Find a different way in. Bash a hole in the bulkhead. Go through a window. In the worst case, put a giant block of ice in front of the propeller–those things are more fragile than they look–or simply freeze the water around the prop. To be fair, those last solutions don’t give Mr. Incredible anything to do. Can’t have that. But he seems to be nigh-invulnerable. Throw him in front of the prop to smash it. Problem solved, ship halted before it gets anywhere near the city.

Moving on.

Was I the only one who found Screenslaver’s message rather more compelling than it probably should have been? Not the solution (get rid of superheros), but the core complaint about getting someone else to solve all our problems? Does that sound familiar? “Hey, here’s a guy who says he can save our jobs, solve the budget crisis, and make everything sunshine and roses. Go to it, Dude!” How well did that work out?

There were smaller problems, too. Yeah, having the ship come to a halt without destroying the building it was aimed at was obviously intended as a callback to the opening battle against the Underminer. So why didn’t they do that right: don’t slew the ship sideways, bring it to a halt with the bowsprit touching the window glass without breaking it?

For that matter, what happened to the Underminer? Yeah, he got away. Why didn’t they bring him back at the end? Instead of sending the family off after a random carload of gun-firing criminals, wouldn’t it be more satisfying to send them off after the guy who got away because they didn’t work as a team at the beginning of the film? It wouldn’t even have taken a script change. All they would have needed to do was replace that car of anonymous thugs with a drilling machine popping out of the middle of the street. Leave every bit of dialog and every other cel of animation in that epilogue the same. And you still give that final throwaway scene some emotional resonance by providing a little bit of closure.

They did get some things right. Violet’s arc was handled nicely, for instance. No sappy musical interludes (and I loved the heroes’ theme songs playing during the credits).

But when the absolutely unquestioned best scene–Jack-Jack’s epic battle with the trash panda–comes in the middle of the movie, you’ve got serious problems.

I did enjoy the movie. It’s amusing and it held the attention of a theater full of viewers of all ages well enough (though I did see more mid-movie popcorn runs than I would have expected). But it’s not up to the stand Pixar has set for itself.