Saw it on Wednesday night with a half full theater. My first reaction upon walking out of the theater...."I'm disappointed." That was not what I was expecting to say. Perhaps, for me, 14 years between films built up expectations too much.
Things I liked: The animation is spot on. Everything looks so great. Just exactly what you would expect from Pixar. The action set pieces are spectacular and well executed. They were exciting and unique and I could tell what was happening clearly in each sequence. It had a good amount of humor for an action/super hero film. Jack-Jack is great...even though I think they overdid it with him having so many super abilities.
Things I didn't like: Ultimately the plot WAS too similar to the original film. Especially when you remember that this film takes place right after the events of the first film. They just experienced one parent going away to do hero work while the other stays behind with the kids until they all come together to fight as a family. Now we do it all over again. The previews pretty much indicated that's where we were going in this film, and I didn't think it would bother me. But in the end, I found it disappointing.
No reason in an animated family film (it's literally about a family) to have "OMG's," "d*mn," or "h*ll" repeated multiple times.
I really thought they kind of dropped the ball with the villain. The Screenslaver started out great, I thought. Interesting abilities, mysterious, great costume. The fact that it's actually the sister of the hero's benefactor is predictable and boring. It's another repeat of the first movie, where the person you thought was trying to help turns out to be the bad guy. It would have been far more interesting if the bad guy was an actual bad guy, set apart from what the good guys are doing. With the Screenslaver's name and supposed mission, that would make for a much better theme as well.
Which brings me to my last point. The first film had such a strong theme/message: When everyone is special, then no one is. This film had no strong theme or message. There are several ideas that are touched on. But no big theme that I could identify, which is kind of disappointing.
Still, I liked the movie. It was good. I enjoyed it. But I still left disappointed, which is too bad.
Would love to see another one.