Review of The Incredibles (2004) by Matthew O — 22 Jun 2016

I remember seeing THE INCREDIBLES for the first time in theaters, and I was only five (almost six) years old when it came out. Soon after, I became obsessed with it. I couldn't stop myself from watching it over and over again. Sure, I couldn't understand the story or all of the jokes. But I didn't care, the action and the animation looked so cool! Everyone I knew loved this movie. Whenever we wanted to talk about movies, we'd always think of THE INCREDIBLES.

As I got older, I started to understand a lot more of the jokes and found myself really getting into the story. And every time I watch it now, I could get something new out of it, and I absolutely love films that are like that. Because of that, it makes THE INCREDIBLES probably my favorite superhero film of all time and easily one of my favorite Pixar films. What I love most about this film is not the action or the animation, it's how much we can relate to the story and characters. Sure, we can't relate to the fact that they have superhuman powers. But it's the routines they go through and their personalities that we can relate to. Bob Parr is stuck working for an insurance company and his job is really leaving a bad impact on his life since his past life had affected him so much, which points out he's going through a midlife crisis. But it brings out his caring personality as he does what he can do to help people. Helen Parr (Elastigirl) does what she can do to make everyone in the family fit in, which leads to occasional arguments between her and Bob, something that any married couple can understand.

Their children, Dash and Violet, also have plenty of personality that any kid can relate to. Dash is very competitive and often gets into trouble, and Violet is introverted and easily gets irritated. But what I really love about these characters is that we get to watch them gradually become more mature and become a better person by the end. Dash learns to control himself when it comes to competition, and Violet becomes socially interactive. I relate to Violet the most, which makes her my favorite character in the film.

All of the other characters are also very enjoyable. Edna Mode is a lot of fun just for her extreme passion for designing superhero outfits. Frozone is... well, he's Samuel L. Jackson, he's always entertaining. Syndrome probably goes down as the best Pixar villain. You completely understand his motivations for disliking supers. He once was a superhero fanatic, always following Mr. Incredible around and constantly being rejected. This led him to realize he can't count on anyone, especially supers. He was also witty, intelligent, and well spoken when proving that his intentions are justified.

This was the first Pixar to focus on human characters. Beforehand, Pixar always seemed to have problems animating people, the facial expressions and movements haven't always looked right. Here, the people look fantastic, the movements are very flowing and the expressions show a lot of emotion. That has a lot to do with the awesome-looking character designs, they look a lot more like cartoons. They didn't have to worry about making them look like actual people, so they had more time to animate all the movements and expressions to make them feel more real. And the action scenes are so much fun to watch and brilliantly animated. They have all of these creative locations and setups to make them not only entertaining, but interesting. It's all the more fun when they add in Michael Giacchino's fantastic and very underrated score. It's very spy themed, kind of like what you'd here in a James Bond movie, which would fit with the film's tone.

The only small nitpick I would say about the film is maybe they could've focused a little more with the rest of the family. It's probably because I love these characters so much that I kind of wanted the entire film to be centered on them. But it's still well worth it when we finally seen them in action in the end. I'm hoping we get a lot more of them together in the upcoming sequel, which I'm SO excited for!

I don't know what else to say about this film, it's just incredible! (Yeah, go ahead and cringe at that pun) I've watched it a million times before and I'll watch it a million times again, I will never get tired of it. Applause to you, Brad Bird, keep up the good work.

Grade: A+.