 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
The Incredibles - 11/5/04 - PG - 115m
Craig T. Nelson - Bob Parr/Mr. Incredible
Holly hunter - Helen Parr/Elastigirl
Jason Lee - Buddy Pine/Syndrome
Director: Brad Bird
Screenplay by: Brad Bird
Studio: Disney - Pixar
Official
Website
JEF
First let me say that I enjoyed this movie overall. But this critique may sound a little harsh as I try to pinpoint what it was that bothered me about this movie.
Storyline: Through a bizarre twist of lawsuits, super heros are forced to go into a sort of witness protection plan and lead normal lives (despite their super powers). We meet Bob Parr aka: Mr. Incredible (Craig T Nelson) who is trying very hard to lead a “normal” life. He’s married now, has 2 kids, and a 9-5 office job. He hates his job, his marriage is on the rocks, and his kids are getting out of hand in school. Then Bob is contacted with a secret message, and this leads to the potential that Bob may be able to enter back into the world of super heros and once again save the world.
Lets start with the obvious… the animation was “incredible”!!! This was perhaps the first movie where I stopped seeing it as a computer animated film. Sure they were still cartoon-ish characters but the attention to detail, the style of animation, and the backgrounds were so complete that I was drawn into this world.
The characters themselves were well done also. Bob Parr was the lead character with voice work done by Craig T Nelson. The voice work was a perfect match. Helen Parr’s voice was done by Holly Hunter, and this one just seemed slightly off. Holly has a distinct voice and it was difficult to view the character and not think about Holly herself. (Did that make any sense?) In other words, I forgot that it was the Actor Craig T Nelson doing the voice for Bob, but I never forgot that it was Holly Hunter doing the voice for Helen.
Two additional points that I admired about the animation were the hair, and the way they handled ‘Dash’ Parr’s super power. Computer animation has always strived to animate hair in a realistic way. Perhaps the last big breakthrough was Scully from Monsters Inc. But this time it was most noticeable with “Violet Parr” the daughter. She had jet black long hair that looked so real it was amazing. Even the thinning hair on Bob Parr was well done. There were quite a few credits at the end for “Hair and Cloth” so kudos to all of them. The second point was how they handled the character Dash. Dash (like his name hints at) was a super fast runner. How do you film a character in a movie who can run that fast! Well due to the computer animation, the cameras can move as fast as the character and it was well done. Rather than just see a blur of color, we actually got to see Dash running as fast as his legs could move running through the forest.
Ok, onto the critical part… The storyline bothered me just a little. I understand the studios want to entertain the adults in addition to the children. And this is the second or third movie I’ve seen of late that I would consider a “children’s movie” but yet has a PG rating. Is this the end of “G” rated movies? Especially from Disney this comes as a bit of a surprise to me. The reason cited was that the movie contained “animated violence” – yes, people died in this movie by a fiery crash just to name one. I was also glad to see that Disney did not keep with their usual tradition of killing off one of the parents. But instead what bothered me were the adult situations within the family. The husband and wife were going through a tough time. There were times when an affair was hinted at, and that Bob may have been cheating on Helen. This bothered me because I could imagine a kid sitting there watching this movie and wondering if perhaps his parents were going through a similar situation. Or wondering if their fighting and yelling at one another would lead up to an affair. Ok, maybe I’m reading too much into the storyline of a children’s movie, but it still bothered me that details like this could have easily been left out and not effect the overall story.
Well like I said, overall I enjoyed this movie, and am giving it a strong “green light” but after the show was over I felt like something was a little off. I believe Lyn shared this feeling that something was not quite right about this movie. Regardless though, it was an entertaining movie with lots of action, and amazing animated art. Just a small word of caution to parents for the PG rating.
Jef
PS> I had heard rumors that this would be the last film by Pixar and Disney. That Pixar wanted to go off on their own, because after all they did all the work, and Disney just put their brand on it. But just today I saw that a trailer has been released for the Disney/Pixar film called “Cars” to be released in November of 2005. So much for rumors.
