THE INCREDIBLES (2004):
Written by: Brad Bird
-Pixar was on a hell of a roll already, and this just kept it going- except for the mediocre, dumb
Cars movies (UP YOURS,
CARS! YOU GET SEQUELS AHEAD OF EVERYBODY ELSE BECAUSE OF KIDS' TOYS AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT!). They pretty much have a license to print money with anything they produce, but mixing it with something COMIC BOOK FANS can enjoy was just icing on the cake. The movie was really well-done, and exceptionally adult at points, involving a superhero finding the skeletal corpse of an old ally, the perceived death of his family, '50s nostalgia (the Parr household), the sense of life passing you by and making you more mediocre with each passing year, etc. Oddly I've only seen it a couple of times, but I remember it a lot better than most movies I've seen even in the past year. It's THAT memorable and well done.
Brad Bird (of
The Iron Giant and
Simpsons fame) came up with the idea in the early '90s, but kept putting it off due to life getting in the way, much like how Bob Parr is in the film. Warner Bros. passed on it after their Looney Tunes
Back In Action movie flopped, and his buddy John Lasseter picked it up, and the rest is history (Bird says "I came into a studio, freaked everyone out by how many presents I asked for, and got everything I wanted"). It required a TON of work, since human beings were rare in CGI at that point (it's why most Pixar & other CGI movies use weird monsters and stuff- the Uncanny Valley is TREMENDOUSLY hard to overcome)- they succeded by making the characters cartoonish and unrealistic, to avoid the usual pratfalls that
Final Fantasy and
The Polar Express suffered.
A huge part of the movie was kind of this mediocre drudge that people end up falling into as adults, but everyone kind of gets a subplot. Bob feels used, underappreciated and bored, which is why he leaps at the chance to do "superhero stuff" on Syndrome's island. Helen is a bedraggled housewife, and both excited by the "New Bob" and his new job, but mournful when she thinks she's being cheated on. Also, DAT ASS. Dash is upset because he's not allowed to use his powers- much like Bob, he chafes under these societal rules of enforced mediocrity. Violet is PERFECT as the "Shy Girl" who's afraid to even talk to people. Most of their powers reflect their personalities (especially Violet's, which allow her to literally disappear).
The movie also evokes a lot of Spy Fiction, with the heroes doing a lot of stealth, piloting and other things in addition to just fighting- a kind of cross-genre thing that appears more
Johnny Quest, evoking 1960s Cartoons a bit. Bob's montage of getting back into shape is pretty terrific, as is Dash's unbridled joy at being able to be as fast as he needs to be. The sheer weight of Bob's voice in certain scenes is PERFECT, too- I had no idea Craig T. Nelson could act this well. The bit where he nearly kills Syndrome's henchlady, can't do it, and sadly breaks down weeping when he thinks his family's dead is DEAD-ON, as is him shouting to Helen "I can't LOSE YOU again! I'm not STRONG enough!".
The movie has tremendous style, too- the technology seems pretty modern, but the conceit is right out of the 1950s & '60s, especially with the set-up of the houses. That this era is so linked to suburbia is part of the movie's overall theme, with the characters sort of breaking OUT of that, and becoming what they were meant to be on Syndrome's futuristic island. The plot evokes similarities to
Harrison Bergeron, a short story in which exceptional people are artificially held back in order to not make anyone feel inferior- a somewhat "Meritocratic" view of life. It's one of the more odd bits of the movie, as exceptionalism is seem as this lost ideal, but in real life I think it's still pretty strong. Yeah, it argues against stupid things like "Graduating From 4th Grade" and "Participation Medals" and the babying of other people at the expense of the skilled, but... it's hard not to see the opposite in reality.
Reception & Cultural Impact:
-The movie was enormously successful, making $261 million domestically, and almost three times that overall. It was the fourth-most-successful Pixar movie of all time (behind
Toy Story 3,
Finding Nemo &
Up), but took YEARS to get a sequel, thanks to being in the middle of the pack and not the financial money-maker that the
Cars franchise had turned into (UP YOURS,
CARS!), in addition to Brad Bird being busy with a lot of other stuff.
The movie had a major impact, and produced a lot of merchandise- the characters are popular in parades at the Parks, and the California Scream' rollercoaster was changed to The Incredicoaster in 2018, complete with large statues of the characters now being visible on the ride. Much of the dialogue is fairly quotable, but the BIG stuff all comes from Samuel L. Jackson's Frozone arguing with his wife ("WHERE IS MY SUPER-SUIT, WOMAN?!" followed by "GREATER GOOD? I AM YOUR WIFE! I am the GREATEST GOOD you are EVER gonna get!"). Edna Mode is oddly the most popular character in many things, where the character (voiced by Bird himself) has fantastic lines and acts like a true know-it-all fashion icon who is nonetheless packed with wisdom about life.
Helen Parr also became a bit of a perv icon, as her GIGANTIC lower body single-handedly created an entire generation of Ass Men, and she's been appearing in artwork ever since. The first movie featuring it so heavily in that famous "HHHHMPH" mirror scene is probably what did it. That
The Incredibles 2 put an even BIGGER focus on Dat Ass is no mistake, either.
. I mean, I don't wanna just spam out a TON of stuff, but until I hit The Incredibles, nobody's getting a statline.
