While we still have to wait a little longer before ‘Incredibles 2’ is released in Irish cinemas – until 13th July to be exact – the superhero sequel hits US cinemas tomorrow which means a number of the movie reviews for it have already become available.

It’s been a fourteen year gap between the first Disney Pixar ‘The Incredibles’ movie and it looks like the wait was worth it as critics are loving the follow-up.

At the time of writing, the movie holds a 96% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a score on 83 on Metacritic, which is extremely impressive.

The Guardian gave the film four out of five stars and described the movie as “fun and zippy.” Brian Tallerico of Roger Ebert also pointed to the film’s sense of momentum, writing: “It’s a movie that’s constantly in motion, surprising you with the way it so seamlessly flows from action to comedy to family and back again.”

The Washington Post’s Michael O’Sullivan and The Wrap’s Robert Abele praised the film’s fresh take on the tired superhero genre. O’Sullivan saw the film as “both pop-culture eye candy and a sly critique of it” while Abele believed its director “[Brad] Bird has enriched the genre beyond the usual hurrah/comic brio with piquant commentary on fan-cultism, our screen-dependent lives, and gender-role biases.”

Darren Franrich of Entertainment Weekly thought the film was “the weirdest Pixar movie ever, revolutionary and retro, an anti-authoritarian ode to good parenting.”

Mind you, it wasn’t all praise, as criticisms were aimed at the film’s apparent “rocky start” and some found that the action superseded the film’s emotional core.

Todd McCarthy from THR found ‘Incredibles 2’ to be “crackling entertainment” and “boosted by central characters that remain vastly engaging and a deep supply of wit”, but also argued that “it hits the target but not the bull’s-eye in quite the way the first one did.”

Variety’s Owen Gleiberman has given what appears to be the most scathing review of the major film publications. He wrote: “I wish I could say that Incredibles 2, which Bird also wrote and directed, is the great sequel The Incredibles deserves. It is not.

“It’s got a touch of the first film’s let’s-try-it-on spirit, and it’s a perfectly snappy and chucklesome and heartfelt entertainment, with little retro felicities you latch onto, yet something is missing: the thrill of discovery — the crucial sensation that the movie is taking us someplace we haven’t been.”