Seriously, it's insane how generic and cliche this was. At every turn I could think of 20 things to make this story better. It's so weird because Invincible usually plays around with these tropes so well having good and original execution. Meanwhile this has been done before, and the execution was mostly mediocre. Not to mention how the plot doesn't hold up to scrutiny and compromises the world building, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
First off, the presentation. This has some of the most boring direction for animation. Nearly every shot is static and basic. The animation budget was clearly limited in areas of the TV show, but good direction hid it well enough, and they saved it up for the key moments, which made it look great. Comparatively, here, it's not well hidden thanks to boring direction. It just feels so lifeless and stilted. The only exception to this is the action scene with Eve and her "siblings" which is admittedly very good, but sadly the scene itself is another can of worms when it comes to the writing. Aside from that I also liked when Dr. Brandyworth explains Eve's backstory making it seem nicer than it was while the visuals show her homeless mom being paid rather than being a colleague who volunteered. And yup, that's about all I liked with the visual presentation. Don't ask me about sound and music because I already forgot. That's the least of the problems though, let's get to the writing.
The dialogue. It's hilariously bad. So bad at times, it's shocking this is what they went with. This feels like a first draft of a script, except I don't understand how it could have such cringe-worthy lines. They're still referring to super powered people as "freaks" in this. It's 2023, come on. In my entire life I've literally not once heard someone use that word in the way it's done here and in so much media. Eve also has the most cliche parents who hate her for being "weird" and by the slip of the tongue, they accidentally yell they wish she was normal! X-Men did this in 2000, over 2 decades ago, and it wasn't even the main focus of the movie! Look, this isn't even that bad, but I can literally pick apart the entire storyline for hours with the mediocrity and unoriginality. However, let's focus on the most glaring examples.
In this world, where there's presumably well liked, established heroes, are you seriously telling me that a kid who probably idolizes them would be freaked out and ignore her super powered friend? Especially her, who becomes Eve's friend out of nowhere because she's "weird." A simple change that doesn't really change the plot and has the same outcome, while subverting superhero tropes, is that her friend first has fun with this (and maybe we can flesh out the powers and show consequences), but then realizes being involved with a super powered person puts her at risk, and so then they come to an agreement to stay away from each other. Nothing actually changed but this is far more interesting, makes Eve's character more mature, is inline with the world-building, and doesn't make me roll my eyes!
Also can superhero content for once properly explain these stupidly over powered abilities and give them proper rules and limitations? This is the only issue the show has as well. We have the mental block for living matter. That's good. But there's still multiple moments where you ask yourself "why couldn't she just do this" or question the mechanics of her powers in general. (Kind of inconsequential, but when she's changing food, is she changing the actual taste or just the composition of the food, like what if this causes an eating disorder?). You can chalk that up to inexperience in this version due to how young she is, but whoever wrote this had 0 creativity and so there's no clever exploration or realistic learning of her powers. She only learns certain things in the heat of the moment from luck, I guess.
In battles we get no consequences for potential inexperience or misuse of her powers, so she's basically an adult. So much so that she literally commands cops to "fall back and form a perimeter or something." Clearly she says this not having any idea what she's doing. So of course the ADULT cops tells the KID "What? Get the hell out of here!" But then Eve saves the cop and suddenly he follows the orders??? This was literally done in The Avengers, except at that time heroes weren't prevalent, and cops were following Captain America, not a literal child!!! I cannot emphasize enough how embarrassingly idiotic this writing is. It genuinely pisses me off. You cannot be this unoriginal and silly, but I digress. Remember when in the show Grayson's inexperience with his powers literally made him harm people unintentionally? Couldn't this have been shown with Eve's much more complex and dangerous powers? Nope, because here Eve is perfect apparently! (I sympathize with her siblings more than her).
The Incredibles is literally a kids movie (but a masterpiece) where the superhero parents tell their kids the real bad guys will not hesitate to kill them. Here, when we literally have the TV-MA rating to explore this level of maturity, the criminals are quipping back at Eve with some of the worst dialogue I've ever heard. "The name's Kill-cannon, not get-beat-up-by little-girls-cannon." Imagine the first time she goes out to fight those criminals stealing dogs, she literally gets shot. Now under the pressure she escapes, and once back actually learns how to use her powers better to deal with this situation. It can also further affect her life. But nope, nothing. It is absolutely baffling there is no exploration of how being a kid superhero affects Eve psychologically. Why? Because she's pretty much a perfect hero since the beginning, and she never finds herself in actual dangerous or dark situations. Y'know what I want to explore? The consequences of leaving a metal mask on those criminals. What if these actions accidentally destroy their lives? But nah, this special is too boring to explore anything interesting.
Clearly horrendous dialogue aside, there's more questionable moments in the plot. How was Eve actually hidden? Because if the baby is just missing clearly they'd look for her, and it wouldn't be hard to find her with their resources and checking for everyone in the building. Or he'd have to replace the baby, with the dead one from Eve's parents, but then what about DNA testing? So I'm a little confused by that. They joke about Brandyworth finding her, but really question it. How does he do it with seemingly no resources (also why/how was he let go when they clearly could've used him?), when the evil organization cannot find Eve. Also hilarious when he's used as a Deus Ex Machina. Where did he get that car? Speaking of the villains, in the ending portion, you're literally shooting in the lab with your 3 most important assets, you've got to be kidding me. Not to mention how they trap Eve and can't contain her, brilliant. Maybe knock her out? Weaken her? No? You literally don't need her here.
The climax with her entire "real" family being killed off is quite good, and suddenly the voice acting got great too, but it was too little too late, and it's comical that she now cares about her siblings, some that she literally killed! I can't be the only one who found her behavior in that action scene to be morally reprehensible. It was the most interesting part of this story and her siblings are just portrayed as evil, killed off, and then somehow Phase 2 dies happy in Eve's arms, and she forgives him? Before this Eve's supposed brother explains how they were created due to her, and she literally just accidentally kills one (without much reaction), and what does she say? "Ok so you're less good versions of me. Then this should be easy." Literally sociopathic behavior. What the hell. She gets no consequences for the behavior in this action scene. Also they don't really do much with them being able to control organic matter, which is the main difference they have to Eve. Plus, why did this even happen? Did they release them just so Eve MIGHT fight them? We've established there are many other heroes in this world. Eve is a kid. They have drones, that how they spotted Eve in the first place! Tell me this isn't an illogical plan.
The point of this special is to explain Eve's origins and develop her character more whilst presumably increasing her likability for the audience. Well, it backfired. I LIKE the character in the show, but the most forced sad upbringing, her lack of flaws, and actual development does not make me suddenly sympathize with her. Especially after morally reprehensible behavior. Explain to me why this story NEEDED to be shown to us this way, and couldn't have been simply told or subtly hinted at in the show, in a way that saves so much time, and probably fixes most of my issues since it doesn't have to be fully shown to us. There's so many more interesting stories to be told in this universe and you chose THIS? I hope this wasn't made by people who have big involvement in Season 2 because this genuinely worries me when I was beyond excited and confident for Season 2. I'm genuinely shocked people are liking this so much with how prevalent superhero fatigue has become. The genericness wouldn't have mattered if it was actually well enough executed. This is coming from someone who liked Blue Beetle! But this simply fell flat on its face for me, and felt pointless. The only reason I don't call it bad is because the animation is solid, and the climax was good, but It was close.
5/10.
First off, the presentation. This has some of the most boring direction for animation. Nearly every shot is static and basic. The animation budget was clearly limited in areas of the TV show, but good direction hid it well enough, and they saved it up for the key moments, which made it look great. Comparatively, here, it's not well hidden thanks to boring direction. It just feels so lifeless and stilted. The only exception to this is the action scene with Eve and her "siblings" which is admittedly very good, but sadly the scene itself is another can of worms when it comes to the writing. Aside from that I also liked when Dr. Brandyworth explains Eve's backstory making it seem nicer than it was while the visuals show her homeless mom being paid rather than being a colleague who volunteered. And yup, that's about all I liked with the visual presentation. Don't ask me about sound and music because I already forgot. That's the least of the problems though, let's get to the writing.
The dialogue. It's hilariously bad. So bad at times, it's shocking this is what they went with. This feels like a first draft of a script, except I don't understand how it could have such cringe-worthy lines. They're still referring to super powered people as "freaks" in this. It's 2023, come on. In my entire life I've literally not once heard someone use that word in the way it's done here and in so much media. Eve also has the most cliche parents who hate her for being "weird" and by the slip of the tongue, they accidentally yell they wish she was normal! X-Men did this in 2000, over 2 decades ago, and it wasn't even the main focus of the movie! Look, this isn't even that bad, but I can literally pick apart the entire storyline for hours with the mediocrity and unoriginality. However, let's focus on the most glaring examples.
In this world, where there's presumably well liked, established heroes, are you seriously telling me that a kid who probably idolizes them would be freaked out and ignore her super powered friend? Especially her, who becomes Eve's friend out of nowhere because she's "weird." A simple change that doesn't really change the plot and has the same outcome, while subverting superhero tropes, is that her friend first has fun with this (and maybe we can flesh out the powers and show consequences), but then realizes being involved with a super powered person puts her at risk, and so then they come to an agreement to stay away from each other. Nothing actually changed but this is far more interesting, makes Eve's character more mature, is inline with the world-building, and doesn't make me roll my eyes!
Also can superhero content for once properly explain these stupidly over powered abilities and give them proper rules and limitations? This is the only issue the show has as well. We have the mental block for living matter. That's good. But there's still multiple moments where you ask yourself "why couldn't she just do this" or question the mechanics of her powers in general. (Kind of inconsequential, but when she's changing food, is she changing the actual taste or just the composition of the food, like what if this causes an eating disorder?). You can chalk that up to inexperience in this version due to how young she is, but whoever wrote this had 0 creativity and so there's no clever exploration or realistic learning of her powers. She only learns certain things in the heat of the moment from luck, I guess.
In battles we get no consequences for potential inexperience or misuse of her powers, so she's basically an adult. So much so that she literally commands cops to "fall back and form a perimeter or something." Clearly she says this not having any idea what she's doing. So of course the ADULT cops tells the KID "What? Get the hell out of here!" But then Eve saves the cop and suddenly he follows the orders??? This was literally done in The Avengers, except at that time heroes weren't prevalent, and cops were following Captain America, not a literal child!!! I cannot emphasize enough how embarrassingly idiotic this writing is. It genuinely pisses me off. You cannot be this unoriginal and silly, but I digress. Remember when in the show Grayson's inexperience with his powers literally made him harm people unintentionally? Couldn't this have been shown with Eve's much more complex and dangerous powers? Nope, because here Eve is perfect apparently! (I sympathize with her siblings more than her).
The Incredibles is literally a kids movie (but a masterpiece) where the superhero parents tell their kids the real bad guys will not hesitate to kill them. Here, when we literally have the TV-MA rating to explore this level of maturity, the criminals are quipping back at Eve with some of the worst dialogue I've ever heard. "The name's Kill-cannon, not get-beat-up-by little-girls-cannon." Imagine the first time she goes out to fight those criminals stealing dogs, she literally gets shot. Now under the pressure she escapes, and once back actually learns how to use her powers better to deal with this situation. It can also further affect her life. But nope, nothing. It is absolutely baffling there is no exploration of how being a kid superhero affects Eve psychologically. Why? Because she's pretty much a perfect hero since the beginning, and she never finds herself in actual dangerous or dark situations. Y'know what I want to explore? The consequences of leaving a metal mask on those criminals. What if these actions accidentally destroy their lives? But nah, this special is too boring to explore anything interesting.
Clearly horrendous dialogue aside, there's more questionable moments in the plot. How was Eve actually hidden? Because if the baby is just missing clearly they'd look for her, and it wouldn't be hard to find her with their resources and checking for everyone in the building. Or he'd have to replace the baby, with the dead one from Eve's parents, but then what about DNA testing? So I'm a little confused by that. They joke about Brandyworth finding her, but really question it. How does he do it with seemingly no resources (also why/how was he let go when they clearly could've used him?), when the evil organization cannot find Eve. Also hilarious when he's used as a Deus Ex Machina. Where did he get that car? Speaking of the villains, in the ending portion, you're literally shooting in the lab with your 3 most important assets, you've got to be kidding me. Not to mention how they trap Eve and can't contain her, brilliant. Maybe knock her out? Weaken her? No? You literally don't need her here.
The climax with her entire "real" family being killed off is quite good, and suddenly the voice acting got great too, but it was too little too late, and it's comical that she now cares about her siblings, some that she literally killed! I can't be the only one who found her behavior in that action scene to be morally reprehensible. It was the most interesting part of this story and her siblings are just portrayed as evil, killed off, and then somehow Phase 2 dies happy in Eve's arms, and she forgives him? Before this Eve's supposed brother explains how they were created due to her, and she literally just accidentally kills one (without much reaction), and what does she say? "Ok so you're less good versions of me. Then this should be easy." Literally sociopathic behavior. What the hell. She gets no consequences for the behavior in this action scene. Also they don't really do much with them being able to control organic matter, which is the main difference they have to Eve. Plus, why did this even happen? Did they release them just so Eve MIGHT fight them? We've established there are many other heroes in this world. Eve is a kid. They have drones, that how they spotted Eve in the first place! Tell me this isn't an illogical plan.
The point of this special is to explain Eve's origins and develop her character more whilst presumably increasing her likability for the audience. Well, it backfired. I LIKE the character in the show, but the most forced sad upbringing, her lack of flaws, and actual development does not make me suddenly sympathize with her. Especially after morally reprehensible behavior. Explain to me why this story NEEDED to be shown to us this way, and couldn't have been simply told or subtly hinted at in the show, in a way that saves so much time, and probably fixes most of my issues since it doesn't have to be fully shown to us. There's so many more interesting stories to be told in this universe and you chose THIS? I hope this wasn't made by people who have big involvement in Season 2 because this genuinely worries me when I was beyond excited and confident for Season 2. I'm genuinely shocked people are liking this so much with how prevalent superhero fatigue has become. The genericness wouldn't have mattered if it was actually well enough executed. This is coming from someone who liked Blue Beetle! But this simply fell flat on its face for me, and felt pointless. The only reason I don't call it bad is because the animation is solid, and the climax was good, but It was close.
5/10.