The Incredibles: Mark's Take
06/12/2004 . Source: Mark R. Leeper 

Pixar does it again with a comedy/action film about a family of superheroes. Just when they thought they were out of the superhero business they get pulled back in. Of course, as a film from Pixar it is computer-animated, but that is just the gimmick. The writing is the real attraction.

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Curiously it is a formula that works well. One really had the feeling with FINDING NEMO that the animation people wanted to play putting realistic looking tropical fish on a computer screen and that drove the story. SHARK TALE, Dreamworks's fish animated film, just seemed to want to retell "The Reluctant Dragon" with fish. (Probably they chose fish because Pixar was using them.) But SHARK TALE lacked the joie des poisson that FINDING NEMO had. With THE INCREDIBLES comic book heroes get the Pixar treatment.

In the comic books Superman never seemed to have much of a personal life. Out of the blue suit Clark Kent had about as much personality as a bowl of oatmeal. Originally none of the DC superheroes seemed to have much personal life of interest. That was the revolution of Marvel comics. In the Marvel Universe even superheroes have complex private lives and strong personal problems. THE INCREDIBLES is a film mostly about the personal lives of superheroes. We have a family of superheroes dealing with each other and deciding how they fit into society.

Fifteen years ago Mr. Incredible, secretly Bob Parr (voice by Craig T. Nelson), was a superhero at the top of his form. He spent his day doing super-good-deeds. But too often he found his good deed were getting him into legal problems. A superhero with a spandex suit is no match for a lawyer with a lawsuit. Bob quits the hero business and marries Helen, a.k.a. Elastigirl (Holly Hunter).

Together they go into something like the Witness Protection Program to be incognito and to try to have some semblance of a normal life even if they are very abnormal people. He becomes another frustrated cog in a giant corporate machine. They have two super-children: the aptly-named Dash (Spencer Fox), who runs like The Flash, and Violet (Sarah Vowell), who can make herself invisible and who can create impenetrable force fields, just what the Shrinking Violet in her needs to avoid the world.

There is also the baby, but he is "normal," Helen insists. With everyone in the family trying to be normal, Bob can talk superhero only to his friend and confidant Lucius Best (Samuel L. Jackson), formerly the superhero Frozone. Both would love to get back into full-time action and still an occasional heroic feat with the help of a police scanner. Then a mysterious offer from a secretive organization might just give Bob a chance.

The script written and directed by Brad Bird tells a real story. The Parr family goes through changes in this film. Essentially they learn the value of synergy and teamwork. Michael Giacchino's score is usually fun and when the action gets thick it lapses into a delicious pastiche of John Barry's "James Bond" action music. Previously Pixar seems to have been doing everything they could not to do human figures. The tropical fish look very realistic, but they probably could not fool a tropical fish. Pixar's few human characters just do not feel human. This is the first film they have done in which major characters are human. But still they are still exaggerated caricatures.

Pixar turns out one good film after another and each time they manage to make a film that can be appreciated by just about all ages. THE INCREDIBLES is subversive, heart-warming, and fun. I rate it a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10.

Mark R Leeper

(c) Mark R Leeper 2004