The Incredibles was written and directed by Brad Bird, a former consultant on "The Simpsons" who made his directorial debut with The Iron Giant in 1999. A flop at the box office, Bird's well-reviewed film (a type of Cold War twist on E.T.) found an audience on home video and has a strong Internet following. The roots of this film about a family of superheroes go back more than a decade to a time when Bird envisioned it as a cel animation project. Bird brings to Pixar several unique characteristics, but he stays true to the studio's ideal of storytelling first and foremost.
In the winning action sequences that populate much of its second half, The Incredibles calls to mind the pacing and tone of the original Star Wars films, and it ascends to the heights of that grand crowd-pleasing epic with universal appeal and even more adrenaline. Brimming with action, the film never forgets the drama of its all-too-human superheroes and it remains moving and relevant during its flashiest spectacles.
Unlike the previous Pixar films, The Incredibles is not primarily a comedy. Instead the film is seamlessly fused with humor that neither sidetracks nor wait for laughs. There's a bit of an edge as the film earnestly tackles discontent in modern society, but there's also the warmth that layers the best of films, a warmth which never gets sentimental and yet doesn't feel sardonic.
Every new film that Pixar has released since Toy Story has seemed to have people saying "the bar has been raised." Well, it's fair to say that again, since The Incredibles has visual fireworks beyond anything we've seen before. The most obvious thing to notice is that Pixar has used the 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio here for only the second time.
The first and last time they did was for A Bug's Life, a film which also avoids any of the surefire Pixar conventions (even if that is mostly retrospective analysis for only the studio's second film) and has unfairly developed a knack for being the least strong link on the Pixar chain, with reviews and grosses that fall a bit below the others while still far on the side of positive. Like that film, which seemed to call for a grander canvas to tackle the natural world, the decision to utilize a scope format for the high-octane action in The Incredibles seems logical. (To be fair, such a rationale could be used to justify the same for any of Pixar's visually stunning productions.) The wide frame lends itself to creating some unique cinematic images, and the location animation is stunning, particularly in the geometric city blocks and in the remarkably detailed green hills of the secret island where Mr. Incredible is called on a mission.
The animation of the humans both is obviously stylized and remarkably convincing. When your primary subjects are characters that are not bound by the laws of physics, you're opening yourself to endless possibilities in depicting their motion and endless ways with which to fail. But in animation, as in everywhere else, the film excels, creating a consistent and realistic-feeling world where limits to speed, flexibility, and strength are thrown out the window.
While I try not to put much stock in the Academy Awards, it is a shame that with the recent creation of the Best Animated Feature Oscar, The Incredibles stands no chance to win anything more significant than that. Not even that can be guaranteed, with Dreamworks' Shrek 2 again in possession of the theatrical and home video release timing that in 2001 lent the original Shrek higher-grossing than Pixar's Monsters, Inc. and probably aided its path to the debut Animated Feature Oscar.
That's too bad since The Incredibles deserves all the merit it can get. I have no doubt that this film is one of the best we'll see this year. At the very least, it should be a legtimate contender for the Best Picture award, even if the value of that honor is mostly a feather in the cap of the marketing department.
To sum up, Pixar continues to amaze me. While its closest competitors may shun orginality (On ads for their latest animated film, Dreamworks has proudly displayed a critic's remark "'Finding Nemo' with an urban-contemporary tilt."), Pixar embraces it and the results have been wonderful each time. Fresh, funny, and everything a moviegoer could want, The Incredibles is the sixth time in as many tries that the computer animation studio has worked magic. As usual, the theatrical experience of seeing Pixar's stunning visuals on the big screen (plus the usual short and latest preview, see below) cannot be missed.
Sidenote: Legendary Disney animators Frank Thomas (who recently passed away) and Ollie Johnston lent their voices to a couple of "additional characters" in the film. While it's an in-joke that will fly over the heads of almost all of the hordes I anticipate will flock to see the film, it's a nice moment for two men who have contributed so much to animation over a number of decades.
PRE-FILM ENTERTAINMENT
The first thing attached to all theatrical exhibitions of The Incredibles is our first glimpse at Cars, Pixar's seventh film which is due to arrive in theaters November 2005. Up until now, I've been a bit skeptical about the subject matter (talking cars and a prominent racecar plot), but the Pixar name and John Lasseter's return to direction both have me as intrigued as any other upcoming film.
This teaser does not reveal much of anything, and I imagine most of it won't make it to the final film. It opens with two cars (one voiced by Owen Wilson) travelling down a barren highway where the challenge is to avoid getting bugs on the windshield. What follows this standard Pixar buddy teaser is a lot of very fast-paced footage of the racecars in motion on tracks. I was most intrigued by "The Makers of..." credit at the start, which this time mentions Finding Nemo, Toy Story and A Bug's Life (the score of which is borrowed for the beginning of this teaser).
Next is the staple of the Pixar filmgoing experience, the pre-movie Pixar short. This time, it's 2003's Oscar-nominated "Boundin'", which tells the story of a sheep who's well-known and well-liked for his hill-top dancing skills. When the time comes for him to get his coat sheared, the sheep is traumatized. He's a laughingstock, and he can't dance right. Enter a good-natured American jackalope who helps. I enjoyed this short. Even if it felt more like Rankin/Bass than Pixar (in part due to the presence of rhyming narration), some of the former's strengths in animation do seem to have inspired certain things in Pixar films, so the comparison seems reasonable and is certainly not a bad thing.
Reviewed October 30, 2004.
EPILOGUE: BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE & COMING SOON TO DVD
The Incredibles has had quite the successful box office run. As of mid-January 2005, its gross of over-$255 million domestically makes it the fourth highest-grosser of 2004 and Pixar's second biggest earner. The film has earned even more in international markets, bringing in well over $300 million in just a couple of months. Pixar's sixth film comes off this potent theatrical run with no shortage of film awards and nominations and the fastest DVD release for a Pixar film.
On March 15th, The Incredibles will arrive on DVD in a 2-disc Collector's Edition, offered in separate widescreen and fullscreen formats. The DVD will include 2 filmmaker audio commentaries, a half-hour making-of documentary, two Pixar shorts (theatrical accompaniment "Boundin'" with commentary and featurette, plus the all-new cartoon "Jack Jack Attack"), several deleted scenes including a lengthy alternate opening, character profiles, theatrical trailers, Incredi-blunders, "How We Did It" featurettes on various aspects of production, a trailer for Pixar's next film Cars, a number of Easter Eggs, and more. You can now pre-order The Incredibles DVD from Amazon.com. Read the complete DVD press release.
