A Brief Incredibles Review
At this stage of the game you've most likely either a) already seen The Incredibles or b) already read a stack of reviews that sum things up quite nicely. And so I'm not going to write a hugely detailed review myself - not because the film's not worth the effort but because it's late, I'm tired, and I really don't feel like devoting that much energy to redundancy.
The uber-brief review goes like this: it's really good. Go see it. For the slightly less-brief version, read on ...
For the same reasons as outlined above I'm not going to take the time to sum up the plot here. If you're at all interested in the film, you already know. What I would like to talk about is the execution.
The Incredibles marks two firsts for Pixar. It is the first Pixar film built around human characters and it is also the first film written and directed by someone outside of the original Pixar family. The human character aspect was the one most discussed prior to the film's release. I didn't particularly understand the concern then and I understand it less now. Yeah, they can make human characters that you care about with CGI animation. They've been doing it for decades with traditional cel animation, so this should not come as a surprise, but it eveidently has for a great many people. What does set The Incredibles apart from other Pixar fare is the influence of Brad Bird.
Bird is a very different writer than are Lasseter, Stanton or any of the other Pixar stalwarts. All earlier Pixar films were very clearly children's films and were written as such, with characters and situations primarily designed to draw in the young crowd. This is not the case with The Incredibles. Will it draw kids in? Oh, yes. But was it primarily written for them? I don't think so. At its core The Incredibles is the story of a man in a mid-life crisis brought on by the abandonment of his true self in the name of stability. The opening half of the film revolves dominantly around the gone-to-seed Mr. Incredible as he slogs away at his soul-sapping job as an insurance claims rep, slowly grows distant from his family and tried to maintain his tenuous grasp on the memories of his glorious past. Not exactly kiddie fare, theme-wise. Throw in the fact that this film would have drawn a strong PG rating if made shot for shot identical in the live action realm - likely PG-13 if not for the pristinely clean dialogue - and you've got some unusually advanced stuff for North American animation.
Does that mean you shouldn't bring the kids along? Nope. I saw it today with my three year old and, with the exception of one scene that left him a little bit frightened, he adored it. First words out of his mouth when the credits started to roll: "Can we see it again?" He spent the rest of the night talking about his favorite moments and trying to pin me down to a firm date and time for a return viewing. The character of Dash is clearly intended to give young boys an entry point into the film and he is a roaring success, with older sister Violet filling the same part for the female crowd. The action is wicked fun stuff, positive messages abound, blah, blah, blah.
Pixar has been the cream of the animation crop from the day Toy Story first unspooled thanks to their dedication to character and story. Bird's taken his characters and his story in a slightly different direction than the early Pixar pioneers would have, but his dedication to both is every bit as strong. I'll need to see it a few more times to see how it bears repeat viewings before making a final judgement on just where it stands in the Pixar pantheon, but The Incredibles is certainly within the top three which is high praise when talking about a studio that has yet to produce an even remotely weak film.
