Review: The Incredibles Raised The Bar For Animated Films
- May 24, 2018
- 3 min read
2004's The Incredibles is celebrated far and wide as one of the best Pixar movies - even one of the best animated movies - of all time. Its acclaim mainly comes from its fascinating in-depth lore, gorgeous visuals (especially for 2004), highly memorable soundtrack, and one hell of a performance from director Brad Bird. But what makes it work is it's beautiful story with sympathetic characters, heart, and humour.
Bob Parr (Craig T Nelson) has a terrible job, a strained marriage, and kids who don't listen to him. Oh, and he's a former superhero who's desperately trying to relive his glory days as Mr Incredible, in a world where superheroes have been outlawed. When a beautiful and mysterious woman leaves a message on his desk offering the life he's been chasing, he jets off to a mysterious island, leaving his wife Helen (Holly Hunter) to rescue him when he's kidnapped. Along with their kids and their friend Frozone (Samuel L Jackson), they are forced to don their superhero costumes again to defeat the evil genius known as Syndrome (Jason Lee).
Watching The Incredibles as an adult is a very different experience to watching it when I was a kid. It's honestly one of the most relatable films I've ever seen, in that each of the main four characters has their own goals, problems, and values which everyone has resonated with at some point. Whether it's Helen's desire for stability, Bob's dreams of reliving his former glory, Dash's need to stand out and be himself, or even Bob and Helen's troubled relationship, there's something in this movie for everyone.
If I was to complain about this movie, the total underdevelopment of Violet would be my biggest issue, since she falls short as the only two-dimensional character in a film full of complex human characters. (I might also have complained about the brief torture scene, which is immediately followed by Mr Incredible threatening to crush a woman to death.)
I could write an essay-length review on everything this film does right, but it all only works because of the film's humanity and family values. It's an adult film disguised for the kids as a superhero film, when really, every single plot beat is about evolving the story of the family. Moving moments like on the island when Helen told her children that the bad guys would kill them, and that reality wasn't like the cartoons, really demonstrate the film's commitment to never sacrificing humanity for a gag or a cool fight scene. It's this that is sorely lacking from today's action and superhero films, which we've complained about numerous times on this very website - especially when it comes to Marvel Studios' tendency to waste emotional moments with a stupid quip.
That said, if you see The Incredibles because you want action and drama that you can watch with your kids, you won't be disappointed. It may be a bit cliché at times, but an animated family film and an ode to the Golden Age of comics kinda has to be. The revelations about Syndrome's plan and his body count are genuinely compelling at any age. Syndrome, as both a character and a supervillain, are pretty uninspired, but the action scenes are quite fun and the climax is a highly satisfactory vessel for the action and family scenes.
I think it was around the point when Dash was struggling to understand why he couldn't use his powers that I decided what sort of review I wanted to write. Helen tells Dash that "the world just wants us to fit in, and to fit in, we've just gotta be like everybody else". Dash replies by recalling his father saying that their powers "made us special", to which Helen says, "Everyone's special". Dash responds, "Which is another way of saying no-one is".
I could have written an entire review about how pretty the film is despite its age, how great the lore is, or how Frozone and Edna Mode are the best supporting characters in animation history. But this 40 second scene demonstrates what I think is the greatest part of this film, the characters. More specifically, the amount of attention given to each one, and the way that the Incredible family works. It's an emotionally-driven film which doesn't bore the kids, and doesn't sacrifice on quality. Pixar set the bar yet again for animated movies, and made a film that lives up to its name on every level.
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