Syndrome was the perfect villain. The more I think on it, the more the sequel doesn’t compare to the original in the slightest. But I still enjoyed it for what it is.
Funnily enough, those good sequels are the only two Pixar films I skipped on watching. I saw Cars 2, and lost interest in ever seeing another one of those, and I didn’t find the time to see Finding Dory. I’m not sure if I’d like them, though. Monsters University was not too great.
The sequel is fun and relives a few of the gags. And Jack Jack and Edna are hilarious.
It doesn’t live up to the original because it can’t, by definition, as a sequel, given why the original was so great. It’s novelty, the cleverness of the dozen references to other movies (Bond, War of the Worlds, every super hero movie ever, 2001, just off the top of my head). The sequel was never going to live up to that because it takes place in an existing paradigm.