The Incredibles

**In this post, I discuss the movie The Incredibles, there are spoilers for the movie.**

With the release of the Incredibles 2 due out soon, it seems like the right time to revisit The Incredibles.  A Pixar movie that is one of my favorites and couldn’t understand why it took 14 years to get a sequel.  We got two Cars sequels, Monsters University, Toy Story 3 and Finding Dory before this movie.  Except for Toy Story 3, did we really need sequels for all the movies I listed?

The Incredibles follows Bob and Helen Parr and their family.  Two superheroes known as Mr Incredible and Elastigirl.  Mr Incredible has super strength and Elastigirl can stretch her body like rubber.  They are called Supers in this world.  They have to assume normal lives with their kids Dash, Violet, and Jack Jack after the government bans all superhero activity, following a number of lawsuits.  The kids, expect for Jack Jack, that have powers of their own. Dash is super fast and Violet can turn invisible and project force fields.  It is not revealed until the end, but Jack Jack is shown he has at least 3 different powers that the family doesn’t find out about in the movie.  Bob longs to being a hero again but is stuck in hiding.  He gets a chance to be a hero again after he is called to a remote island to battle an out of control robot and uncovers the truth about the benefactor supporting him.

The film from the start feels like a superhero movie, that is set in a 1960s theme life.  The opening showcases Mr Incredible’s routine, which involves saving the day, being very suave and heroic.  There seems to be not many villains or if they even have superpowers as the only ones that were revealed are Bomb Voyage, a french looking mime who users explosives and Underminer, a mole looking villain who enters in a large drilling machine at the end of the movie. I couldn’t understand how Mr Incredible was being financed and compensated for his heroic actions in the beginning.  Everything is squared and round at the same time, with everything not being as square.  The 1960’s looked oblong to me and it does capture this well.  The music is very catchy.  It adds to the “POW! BANG! OOF!”, the impact to make this movie feel like the 1960’s comic book style movie or show that the movie was going for was going for.  Michael Giacchino score was great and this is his first score for a Pixar Movie.

Syndrome has to be my favorite character.  He was an admirer of Mr. Incredible named Buddy and wanted to be a Super like him.  Buddy called himself Incrediboy and used gadgets that made things worse for Mr. Incredible.  He got in Mr. Incredible’s way and angered him, prompt Mr. Incredible to say “he works alone”.  I liked that the rejection twisted him into the villain Syndrome, and used gadgets and Omidroids to stop and kill supers.  I like that the even though Supers had powers and abilities, there were still mortal and finite.  He also wanted to be the hero through evil means.  But had superhero fanboy mentality when he encounted Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl and family his family.  Kind of like he wrote a fan fiction about that happening.  He has an assistant named Mirage.  She type the typical female assiant in the movie, who helps the bad guy and brought Mr Incredible to the island.  She also changes sides when Syndrome almost lets her get crushed by Mr Incredible and Syndrome shoots down the plane Mr. Incredible’s family was in.  Syndrome was a great villain but careless at the end of the movie when he get sucked into a turbine engine thanks to his cape and a very obvious foreshadow from Enda Mode’s warning of why capes are bad.

The Parr family was the main focus and for the most part I enjoyed their antics, squabbles, and closeness.  I liked that they gave some intelligence to Mr. Incredible.  He always didn’t rush into danger and isn’t scientific smart, he was very logical.  He could analyze a situation and instead of using brute strength to solve or stop a problem.  Violet was introverted and I felt the power was made to match her personality.  Mostly using her power to hide.  She kept to herself and had trouble using her power under pressure but overcome that when her family needed her the second time.  The same could be said for Dash would wanted to use power but had to keep them hidden.  Only able to use his speed to act out in class where he was almost caught putting a tack on his teachers chair.  His speed match his attitude.  I liked Bob showed, what I call, sighing moments for a middle age man, when Bob looks out to his past and glory days, but has to hide being a hero and “doing the right thing” at work.  Funny because he kind of gotten the life that he wanted.  In the beginning of the movie when he is being interviewed.  He stated he wanted to slow down and have a family.   Helen or Elastigirl, while I liked her as well, now looks like a “Mary Sue-ish” to me.  A Mary Sue is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character.  I’m not sure how much training all the characters had and I know she had to, but when could she fly a jet to the island where her husband is being held captive?  She also never seemed to be intimidated.  Even when she the plane she is flying is shot down, she is still able to save her kids.  and come up with ways to figure out problems, like where the missiles that were fired came from.  But then there was the scene after she discover her husband was back to heroing, she was cried for being a fool and believing he had given it up.  that is why she is Mary Sue-ish to me.

The last two Major characters Frozone and Edna.  Frozone, was there because it’s Samuel L Jackson and he’s cool.  He was the voice of the character and to me was kind of sidekick and a supporting hero to Mr. Incredible.  I don’t know why he was called Frozone when he didn’t even have an Afro.   He has freezing powers and seemed to use them like Ice Man from X-Men.  Despite him just being made out as a minor character, I liked him and considered him a major character as well.  I wish and hope we get more of Honey, Frozone’s wife in the movie, who we only hear her voice.  I am guessing that she might be a Super to.  Enda Mode, the fashion designer of the Supers costume, was the right fit for the movie.  She is a fascinating character, being able to talk down to Bob and inspire Helen to fight despite her short stature.   Her eccentric ness as great and made the deadpan humor in her lines great as well.

It’s the best Fantastic Four movie out there.  I say that in how the family had most of the same powers as the Fantastic Four.  Violet has the Force Field/Invisibility of the Invisible woman. Mr Incredible is like the Thing with his strength. Elastigirl has Mr Fantastic’s stretching. The only mismatch would be Dashell since he has speed and the human torch was a living fireball.  But they did capture Johnny Storm attitude with Dash.  For some reason, I saw a bit of the Silver Surfer in Frozone.  I found it so odd that this film was able to get more Fantastic Four themed elements right than the other three Fantastic Four movies that were made.  I hope Disney will one day get the movie rights back from Twentieth Century Fox.

To side track and for my last point, ever hear of someone call a rated R movie, “Hard R”? It’s when a movie is near NC-17 but gets a R rating. To me rated R is rated R.  I say that because The Incredibles to me pulls off a hard PG. Like Gremlins and the Temple of Doom, two movies claimed to be responsible for the PG-13 rating.  A man tries to kill himself in the movie, then sues Mr. Incredible because he didn’t asked to be saved and “ruined his death”.  There is a lot of gun violence and show actual guns.  Not blasters or any other type of fantasy weapon designed to be kid friendly. Elastigirl warns her kids when rescuing Mr. Incredible men will try to kill them and not show restrain because they are children.  There is also a lot of death of Supers shown in the movie.  From being sucked up by an airplane turbine (twice) and some nonsensical, like getting their capes snagged on an elevator or sucked in a vortex.  (Granted they were cape deaths prompting Enda saying, “No Capes” in the movie).  Even Bob hides behind a shown Super’s death Super’s body to elude Syndrome’s detection.  A pretty dark movie from Pixar when compared to there other movies and those are some of the scenes that stand out to me.

I’m looking forward to the Incredibles 2.  It’s going to be interesting to how they are going to continue since it looks like no time is going to pass between these two movies.  Got any thoughts for me let me know in the comments and thank you for reading.