The Incredibles - review
The Incredibles - review 
The Incredibles Trailer
Director: Brad Bird Players: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L. Jackson, Jason Lee.
Disney’s new CG toon flies in with a crash, bang and....What’s it about?Forced into an early retirement from a life of being a superhero, Mr Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) is a married man and settled down with a family. As the tediousness of suburban life takes its toll a grand comeback beckons himself and his superhero family into unwitting danger. Brad Bird’s long conceived superhero pic hits our screens this week and judging by the eye popping visuals and smart story you’d grown to expect from a Disney Pixar collaboration, this film looks set to be another trophy in the studio’s cabinet or does it… Pushing talking monsters, toys and fish to one side Pixar have delivered their first human feature based on the premise of a life of undercover superheroes. Focusing on Mr Incredible who by night was a sleek and dashing superhero and now due to governmental lawsuits is forced into retiring and now by day he is an oafish and overweight insurance broker, settled down and married to Elastigirl (Holly Hunter). With a family of gifted children domestic life is somewhat different in the Incredible household where issues of superpowers being used in class and destructive fights around the dinner table never disrupt this all American family. The story later veers into a series of full on eye-popping action pieces but it is Bird’s intelligent plotting and gentle laughs in the beginning that provided most of the enjoyment in this film. This brings us to Bird’s secular talent merging adult humour with animation and indeed the animation is a sight to behold; suburban life is portrayed in bland yet colourful visuals. The city is rendered as an urban jungle where Mr Incredible swings from vine to vine-fighting crime. Most impressively is the island fortress lair of the cackling Syndrome (Jason Lee), this is home to the films most kinetic and beautifully constructed set pieces. If only the humour in this movie fought side by side with the lush visuals, instead a reliance on predictable gags and sometime very adult references are the core of this films laughs. Bird’s input on the Simpson’s is evident in this picture where innocent jokes are laced with double meaning. Although like all Pixar toons this targets a multi generational demographic for the film I couldn’t help but find myself appreciating the brief childlike gags more than the innuendo based banter between the adult stars. Nitpicking further the film also has a surprising lack of superhero related jokes instead film homage’s, (notably Jackson’s water cooler scene) take precedence in the movies intertextual humour. This leads on to the performances in the picture and indeed like always they are extremely good with Nelson and Hunter providing a likable partnership, their children provide many of the belly laughs especially during the films final act on the island and Bird has put Samuel L. Jackson to good use, not overusing his ice cool superhero and in turn offering a realistic and humorous partnership between himself and Nelson. The only notable weakness in the acting is Jason Lee’s super villain who comes off a tad too whiny and doesn’t really ever pose a serious threat to our heroes. Unfortunately the wallop comes whilst watching this film’s leads as you can’t help but compare them to the witty partnerships of Pixar’s previous features. Woody and Buzz, Dory and Marlin all set a new standard in cartoon humour and like the rest of this film you can’t help but feel it is a tad weaker effort than the rest of Pixar’s body of work. These points aren’t to wholly fault Bird who deserves the majority of the films applause where he has stamped a different slant on this franchise. If this may be Pixar at its worst at best they have the cinematic power to continually wow audiences for generations to come. Verdict. Applause to Pixar for another dazzling animated feature where a weaker story is made up for in some of animations most impressive visuals to date.
by Shaun Davis email These views are not necessarily the views of flicKerNOW
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