THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Like it or not, we need heroes to help us in situations we can’t do alone.
PLOT
2004’s The Incredibles takes place in a fictional dystopia where superheroes became banned for the past 15 years after Robert Parr aka Mister Incredible, known for his super strength, got sued for collateral damage in saving a suicidal civilian and a handful of train passengers when stopping a train from falling off a destroyed track, on the night of his wedding with Helen aka Elastigirl, known for an elastic body. The incident inspired the Superhero Relocation Program to ban supers from using their powers and force them into hiding. Bob has now settled down in Metroville with Helen and have three children: The teenage Violet who can turn invisible & summon force fields, the preteen son Dashell who has super speed and their infant boy Jack-Jack who has yet to unlock his powers. Despite making an honest living in an office job as claims adjuster, Bob misses what he does and spends some nights doing vigilante deeds with his best friend Lucius Best aka Frozone, whose powers are thermokinetic related. One day at work, he gets upset at his boss, Gilbert Huph (Wallace Shawn), for preventing him to stop a mugging that occured outside the building. He then gets himself fired when severely injuring him by throwing him across the building. Things then shake up for him though because after coming home, he gets a tablet message from a lady named Mirage who works for an undocumented government. She recruits him to defeat a rogue robot dubbed an ‘Omnidroid’, which Bob quickly accepts since he knows he’ll be paid well. And since he doesn’t want to tell his family of being fired, he tells Helen that he’ll go out of town for a conference. At ‘Nomansian Island’, Bob finds and defeats the robot by tricking it to rip out its power source. After this victory, he has dinner with Mirage who explains her employer is addicted to power as is she. The success has given Bob a rejuvenation in life to where he spends more time with the family and works out more. He then gets his old blue/black costume patched up by fashion designer Edna Mode. Because she assumes the family knows he’s back at his old ways, she also gets him matching outfits with them that are red/black that will be accustomed to each of their powers. Helen then gets suspicious when when he overhears his latest phone call with Mirage for a new assignment. He returns to the island and not only does he encounter a stronger Omnidroid, but meets the maker nicknamed Syndrome. Bob recognizes him though, as he was once a child fan named Buddy who he remembers wrongfully rejecting him to be his sidekick on the day of his wedding. Ever since that day, Syndrome became wealthy through weapons manufacturing and has deemed his latest model of the Omnidroid to be his most efficient. He then chases Mr. Incredible around the island and presume to have killed him when sending an explosive at him. However, the protagonist avoids impact and has a probe mistake him to be dead when hiding behind the corpse of the late Gaserbeam. Before finding a way off the island, he investigates the message of his late friend ‘Kronos’. When sneaking into one of the facilities, he uses the message to be a password for a computer and discover past supers like Gaserbeam to have been slain by previous models of the robot and that ‘Operation Kronos’ is to send the latest to attack Metroville. With Helen becoming suspicious at home, she notices the stitches on his old suit and reaches out to Edna, who reveals what Bob has been up to. Unaware of where he could be, she checks through a tracking device implanted on his suit but this blows his cover and gets him captured. Helen goes to rescue him with a plane she borrows, but Dash & Violet sneak aboard and leave Jack-Jack with a babysitter named Kari. When Syndrome picks up that her plane is heading their way, he sends missiles her way. She and the kids survive, but the villain and his rival mistake them to have died. Helen & the kids make it to ashore, but the matriarch decides to continue pursuing her husband on her own, advising Dash & Violet to defend themselves with their powers should they need to. Both kids quickly leave the cave however when seeing it connected to a rocket launch that activates. They get made by morning and get chased by guards. As that happens, Helen reaches her husband and by the time they reunite with their kids, Syndrome immobilizes them all. Feeling that he is about to complete his plan, he shares with them the final touches that he will stage subduing his robot and pretend to be a hero. Once he does that, he will sell his weapons all over the world to the point where the term ‘super’ will be irrelevant. Just when he departs to Metroville, Violet is able to figure out how to escape from confinement and thanks to a regretful Mirage, she gives the family a second rocket to follow. By the time they get there though, the Omnidroid has outsmarted Syndrome by disarming his gauntlet remote. Frozone joins the fight with the Parr family and once they get the remote, they’re able to use it to destroy the robot’s power source. With a monumental success, the public praises the real heroes for their efforts. When the Parrs return home, Syndrome infiltrates their home and plans to abduct Jack-Jack, raise him to be his own apprentice. Just when he flies away into his ship, the baby’s various powers activate and the villain drops him. Just when Helen catches her son, Bob throws his car at Syndrome, which causes him to be killed by its own turbine. It causes an explosion, but Violet is able to summon a force field for her family to avoid debris. 3 months after this, the family re-adjusts to normalcy but the film ends with them preparing to work together in facing a new villain.
THOUGHTS
Growing up, the 2000s were filled with superhero films peaking in popularity with hits like Fox’s X-Men and Columbia/Sony’s Spider-Man basically defining the decade before Warner Bros’ The Dark Knight created the highest of expectations. Disney/Pixar knew starting from scratch, as in get inspired by comic book material but not adapt an actual story, would not be an easy feat. However, Writer/Director Brad Bird was able to assemble an impressive team of animated artists to create something special. I have to quote the trolley kid that was the Parrs’ neighbors when I say ‘THAT WAS TOTALLY WICKED’ because I have a good time watching this every damn time. The animation is so surreal it’s like seeing panels come to life in the same vein that the live action films at the time were pulling off. Because of this, each chase and each battle frame by frame is dazzling. And if that don’t make you feel blown away, Michael Giacchino’s ecstatic score will do it for you. I mean I still get chills when seeing Dash run on water. Past comic speedsters have done it before, but the joy he has when he sees he can do it was just special. When I see moments like that, I think this movie overall works because Bird shows a valuable lesson in following your heart when it comes to making a difference there will be those who don’t share the same motive as you. This is the case with the most colorful array of characters Pixar made yet brought to life thanks to a great voice cast. Craig T Nelson has us fall in love with Mr. Incredible from the start because he’s a guy who has all the passion in the world to help others because it calls to him. Not everyone can save a cat while foiling a car chase on the way to his own wedding, with or without his powers. With it being so easy for him being called to action when invited, he would almost forget his priorities which was family. He married Helen because they’re equals when it comes to wanting to help people, which makes it ironic how their visions changed as they got older, whereas he wanted to settle down and she didn’t at first and the roles reversed. Holly Hunter makes Elastigirl much different because she’s the realist in the family. She’s proud of what she did in her past but knows the present is more clinging on to the glory days. Even Samuel L Jackson makes a great friend out of Frozone because even he is content with the past and doesn’t need to be a hero everyday. He knows it’s normal to live quietly and not fight everyday. But when push come to shove, they’ll step in to do the absolute. And on the bright side, Bob & Helen get to raise a new generation of heroes that make as much of a difference as they did in their heyday. I always liked Dash due to how Spencer Fox made him a cocky kid, yet he is still humble enough to restrain himself for the most part until he’s encouraged to let loose. Helen doesn’t want him to compete in sports out of worry he’ll be exposed, but after the adventure they went through, she realized you don’t need to live in fear 24/7, thus allowing him to do track & field despite being temporary. I also think Sarah Vowell shook things up as Violet because she was insecure of herself and wasn’t sure how to express what she had within the way her brother does. Like her mom, she worries that her powers will scare people like her crush Tony Rydinger. But the journey she shared with her family taught her to not be afraid of being yourself which is the motto lives up to the most and that she tends to express by the time of the sequel. I can never get a straight face of Brad voicing Edna because it is so unrecognizable of a performance, which is of course the point. E is hilarious in her give time because of the eccentricity she brings to the table since she’s got her own passion with the costumes she’s made. She had a point with going against the capes since most heroes died from incidents involving their clothing and that is what defeated the villain. Speaking of which, the worst enemies are those of your own doing which is exactly was Syndrome. To this day, I think Jason Lee makes him the studio’s best villain to date because the disappointment he felt in being rejected by one he saw as his idol triggered him to be sociopathic beyond compare. He’s the definition of power hungry because he wants it all for himself and doesn’t care who he offends to get it all. I mean it’s hard to not be intimidated of him being able to kill so many supers just to have glory he doesn’t deserve. And boy is he a sore loser when it comes to being defeated by his own doing. Had he not made his robot a learning kind, he probably would’ve staged its defeat the way he wanted it to. Thank god Mirage had more of a conscience compared to him because Elizabeth Peña showed her to be decisive enough to have standards when it comes to power, thus helping the family at the end. And since he ain’t the only one to hate supers, it comes to show that not everyone feels the same with the real difference makers. Nevertheless, it doesn’t change the fact that there will always be a hero as long as you look hard enough. This movie rocks, but even good stuff like this had things I scratched my head about during rewatching. For instance, I did laugh off of the fact Bob chose to shake the car off the tree, but it’s crazy he didn’t just leave the tree after ripping it from the ground. The cat would’ve gotten off after that. I for one find it odd that the principal didn’t look at the tape of Dash’s instant thumbtack prank on his teacher before calling Helen, but it’s even crazy that no one spotted Violet using her powers in public just outside school. And if you don’t think that piece of insanity can’t be topped, it has to be no one spotting Bob using his powers to work out at the train station. It does make sense for Helen to get suspicious at some point, but why does it take two months? I mean it should’ve taken a week to notice someone else’s hair on his clothes. Hell, Mirage messes up in not bringing another tablet message to Bob rather than call his home phone. If she were discreet the first time around, she should’ve kept it that way. And shouldn’t it be strange that the probe detected the dead body of Gaserbeam and didn’t recognize his DNA? That’s a massive design flaw for Syndrome when you think about it. That is more surprising than the fact Bob wasn’t getting suspicious about missing supers until Gaserbeam because if he was no nostalgic, he would’ve picked up the trail sooner. Also, how did Syndrome not connect the dots that Mr. Incredible was married to Elastigirl? If he had Mirage following him for so long, the dots should’ve been connected sooner. Other than that, this movie will always hold up for what it is. In conclusion, The Incredibles earns the Animated Feature Oscar for matching the exhilaration live action comic book movies are all about. If you love superheroes, this is a must watch for you.
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