Pixar has done it again. The rising star of computer generated imagery has topped their previous masterpiece, Finding Nemo, at least as far as sheer oomph is concerned. The Incredibles is a film far more energetic than a lost clownfish, and this time it’s not a dynamic duo who save the day, but a fantastic family.
The movie also had just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek humor, such as casually professionalizing the superhero industry, adding its own jargon (villains who perorate about their superiority and eventual world domination are said to be “monologuing”), and including two old men who remark that the big heroic feat that saves the day is most definitely “old school.”
The story begins, however, with the disestablishment of the golden age of superheroes, as a suicidal man ends up with a broken neck after being forcefully rescued through a bank window and sues the hero, Mr. Incredible, for damages.
The resulting deluge of lawsuits on superheroes of all kinds leads the government to promise the heroes protection if they cease practicing their art.
So the stage is set for the frustrated Mr. Incredible. Fifteen years later, as a normal, ordinary Robert Parr, he is married to the former ElastiGirl (Helen Parr) with three kids and a job at an insurance company.
His teenage daughter Violet can become invisible and throw forcefields, and his pre-teen son Dash is, as his name suggests, rather speedy. The infant Jack Jack is by all accounts a normal human infant.
The entire façade of normalcy, of course, comes crashing down, as Mr. Incredible’s urge to be super draws his family into a sinister plot tracing back into the superhero’s past.
The Incredibles, like other Pixar offerings, straddles the line between child and adult films. There are the usual jokes aimed at the adults, but the subtle commentary about the social issues that arise from the existence of a class of Nietzschian supermen goes beyond that. The Incredibles is not so much a children’s movie as it is an action flick that happens to have enormous appeal to children.
The super strength of the characters also adds to the film. Each of the four non-infant members of the Incredible family has his or her own issue to work through, be it Mr. Incredible’s recovery from superhero stagnation, ElastiGirl’s broken and renewed trust in her husband, Violet’s self-esteem issues, or Dash’s troublemaking at school. Also in the scene is Mr. Incredible’s old buddy Frozone, superbly voiced by Samuel L. Jackson.
The strongest supporting character is Edna, a super hero costume designer extraordinaire. Voiced by Brad Bird, the creator and director of The Incredibles, she provides not only comic relief—although she does that excellently—but also a source of motivation for the main characters and some really snazzy uniforms.
Of course, the computer generated animation of the film is nothing less than stellar. Pixar’s Renderman program—a superhero in its own right—compiled massive amounts of data to create each high resolution frame of the movie, including the lava flows of the villain’s island lair, Violet’s forcefields, Frozone’s ice, a ton of explosions, and a whole lot more.
The obligatory chase scene, in which the young Dash outruns and outwits his hovering villainous pursuers, is appropriately breathtaking as well. Every film Pixar creates is a giant advancement in animation technology from the last.
A Pixar short, “Boundin’,” precedes the movie. In it, a young lamb learns from a wise old jackalope about the ups and downs of life—literally.
When the lamb has his marvelous and very fluffy coat mercilessly shorn from his body, the jackalope demonstrates how to rebound at least 20 feet in the air to regain that soaring-through-life feeling.
Overall, The Incredibles is stronger than a locomotive, faster-paced than a speeding bullet, and able to leap tall plot points in a single bound. It might even be considered, dare I say, incredible.
