NewsBite

New Yorker film critic mocked for bizarre ‘horny’ Incredibles 2 review

A RESPECTED film critic is being mocked mercilessly over a truly bizarre review painting Incredibles 2 as a highly erotic viewing experience.

Nick BondNick Bond
@bondnickbond
2 min read
June 20, 2018 - 10:34AM
Incredibles 2 Official Trailer

PIXAR’S latest animated offering The Incredibles 2 was released last week to rave reviews — but one in particular has people talking.

The New Yorker has published a largely positive 2000-plus-word review of the PG-rated family film by its veteran movie critic Anthony Lane — and it’s a review with a distinct air of … how do we put this delicately? Horniness throughout.

This is how Lane opens his take on the film:

“As a rule, any marriage in which one partner can willingly cry out to the other, “Trampoline me!,” inspires only envy and awe. In the heat of the action, that is what Mr. Incredible says to Mrs. Incredible, in Incredibles 2, and I’m disappointed to report that the action in question is merely the manic pursuit of a gigantic drill that is whirring through a crowded city and demolishing everything in its path, rather than a lazy afternoon in the marital boudoir with the door discreetly shut.”

Umm … OK. We went to Urban Dictionary to figure out what double entendre Lane might be making with “trampoline me!” and we’ll link to their definition, but consider yourself warned, it’s filth.

The Incredibles, Pixar’s sexiest family apparently? Picture: Disney
The Incredibles, Pixar’s sexiest family apparently? Picture: Disney

Lane continues:

“First came Mad Men, which boasted its own range of period accoutrements, but which choked our yearning for the suits, the smokes, the frocks, the whiskey tumblers, the Sinatra albums, and the rest of the gear by reminding us of the society that they once adorned, with its oppressions both casual and institutional, and its half-concealed despairs. Incredibles 2 can scarcely own up to those, not with young children in the audience, but what it can do, even without stating the dilemma, is to offer a solution. Hence the sight of Helen, accelerating off to work, away from her justly abandoned man, in her black mask, her long tall boots, and her empowering outfit, as tight as a second skin.”

By this point in the review, it’s becoming apparent that Lane has a bit of a cartoon crush on Elastigirl Helen, voiced by Holly Hunter. So much so, he has a bold prediction to make: Parents taking their children to see the film will find it an undeniably erotic marital aid akin to Fifty Shades.

Elastigirl: Cartoon, superhero, sex symbol? Picture: Disney/Pixar.
Elastigirl: Cartoon, superhero, sex symbol? Picture: Disney/Pixar.

“Take your seat at any early-evening screening of Incredibles 2 in the coming days, listen carefully, and you may just hear a shifty sound, as of parents squirming awkwardly beside their enraptured offspring. And why, kids? Because Mommy just leaned over to Daddy and whispered, “Is it just me, or does Mrs. Incredible kind of look like Anastasia in Fifty Shades of Grey? You know, the girl in the Red Room, with the whips and all?” And Daddy just rested his cooling soda firmly in his lap and, like Mr. Incredible, tried very hard to think of algebra. As for how Daddy will react later on, during the scene in which Helen and the husky-voiced Evelyn unwind and simply talk, woman to woman, I hate to think, but watch out for flying popcorn.”

If you feel like you need to wash your eyes with bleach after reading that, you’re not alone. Lane’s razzed-up review has already caused quite the stir online:

Others have pointed out Lane has form in this area, citing an earlier review of the film Gemini in which he disappointedly lamented that actress Lola Kirke dressed in “big jeans and a baggy top” for her performance:

That review earned a rebuttal from the actress herself, who called out his “preference for heroines in more tight-fitting clothes”.

If you’d like to see what one critic apparently considers the most erotically charged cinema experience since Basic Instinct, Incredibles 2 is in cinemas now.

More related stories

Original URL: https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/new-yorker-film-critic-mocked-for-bizarre-horny-incredibles-2-review/news-story/4a164f6e6c39859994ca4abddc04a3e7