The Incredibles

Brad Bird, USA, 2004, 115 minutes

"This time, dahhlingg, no capes!"

Cat stuck up a tree? Someone robbing a bank? How's about a mad bomber? Mr Incredible deals with problems like this everyday. Along with other heroes, such as Elastigirl (his fiance), Mr Incredible saves the world time and again. However, soon after their wedding things go horribly wrong. Mr Incredible is sued by an attempted suicide for saving his life. This is soon followed by a glut of litigation against superheroes. Desperate to avoid further law suits, the government bans all superheroes and places them into the "Superhero Relocation Program". Fifteen years later and Mr Incredible and Elastigirl are now Bob and Helen Parr, living in suburbia and raising their three kids- Violet, who can become invisible, superfast Dash and ordinary baby Jack Jack all the time trying to appear normal. Bob now works in insurance and hates every minute of it, spending his evenings with fellow ex-superhero, Frozone, listening in to police radio for emergencies they can secretly help out on. Longing for the adventures of his old life he accepts an offer from a mysterious benefactor to become a real hero again, but is lured into a trap that only his family can save him from...

I'll admit something to you now. I'm a big comic book fan. And in the past I haven't always been too happy with the way super heroes have been portrayed in movies (Batman and Robin being a prime example). Thankfully in recent years, more often than not super hero films have done justice to the source material. The Incredibles, whilst not coming from a comic themselves, draw heavily on characters and abilities seen in existing comics and it does them proud. For instance, some of the characters show a remarkable likeness to Marvel comic's "Fantastic Four" (it has been rumoured that the Fantastic Four movie underwent rewrites and an increase in budget for better special effects, so that it didn't look pathetic in comparison). This is not to say, however that the ideas ever come across as old or tired. As with other Pixar films, these ideas are used as a starting point which is built upon to produce something new and original. The tone of the movie is darker than previous Pixar releases and there is a depth to the characters that most live action superhero movies never come close to portraying. It's also pretty. SOOOO very, very pretty. The animation has a glorious retro look to it and the texture of the roads, the way the water moves, everything in this movie is a pleasure to look at. So why not come and take a look?

Review by Karl "Carlito Baby" Byrne
Written for EUFS Programme Autumn 2005