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Blast From The Past: The Incredibles Franchise!

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Photo Courtesy of Pixar Animation Studio

No matter how many movies I watch for the very first time ever in my life–including movies that it feels like everyone on Earth has watched but me–there are always so many more to get through!

Add to that that I am THE Comic Book Movie Guy! I have been reading comics my entire life, and I’ve long been fascinated with Hollywood’s ability to turn those fantastical little floppy books and their beautiful images into big, bombastic feature presentations on the big screen. I’ve made an entire podcast around it!

I love movies!

I love comic books!

I love superheroes!

And what I’m very clearly building towards is that somehow, I had never seen either of the Disney/Pixar The Incredibles movies before. 

Photo Courtesy of Pixar Animation Studio

It’s so strange, right? It should have been right up my wheelhouse, but… here we are. It’s not that I have a particular aversion to Disney or Pixar–I have seen loads of their movies–it’s just… these two never quite crept up into my sightline.

I was aware of them. And I was used to the “YOU have not seen THE INCREDIBLES?!” reaction when I told folks I had never watched the flicks. It all just needed to eventually come to a point where it felt right, you know?

And this week, it all felt right somehow.

The Incredibles is a two-film series about a world where superheroes have been outlawed but still exist. The former champions of righteousness have to live out their lives in their secret identities, ignoring their inner urge to fight crime.

Enter: The Parr family, headed by the former Mr. Incredible and Elast-Girl. They have settled down and have had kids, but the urge to help others still consumes Bob, the former Mr. Incredible. And it’s an urge that gets him into trouble when the opportunity to do so presents itself…

Photo Courtesy of Pixar Animation Studio

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS (Complete With A Bonus Up And Down Since We Are Talking Two Movies!)

The movies do an… *sigh*… incredible job of letting each family member shine and get time to display their powers and personality. I’m usually not a fan of flicks over an hour and a half unless they need to be, but I felt like both The Incredibles films earned their nearly two-hour runtime. That’s a lot of movies, especially for an audience filled with kids.

But the runtime is a must to give Mr. Incredible, Elasti-Girl, Dash, and Violet all the time they need to establish who they are and what they can do. The characters are full of energy and life, and each moment spent with them is a joy. And they each get to show off their powers in fun, creative ways!

If I recall correctly, this movie necessitated the 2005 Fantastic Four outing doing reshoots so that team could look nearly as impressive as The Incredibles. Fox saw what Elasti-Girl and Mr. Incredible were doing, and they realized they needed to beef up what their heroes were capable of on the big screen. Fourteen years later for The Incredibles 2, the animation is substantially better, more crisp, and less plastic looking. You don’t think much about it, but Pixar has managed to improve an already great animation style so much over the years. Who knows what their pictures will look like in another ten? 

But yeah, as I watched the first Incredibles, it occurred to me that the animated style was definitely of its era. It still looks great, but there is a slightly unnatural quality to some shots. All of that is smoothed out by the time the sequel comes around.

One of the best segments of either movie is the stuff with Mr. Incredible: Stay At Home Dad in part two. His struggles adapting to being the at-home parent are relatable even to someone without children of their own. He is trying his best, but it’s an uphill battle. 

Watching him struggle with the “new math” that Dash brings home, Violet’s dating life and Jack-Jack’s burgeoning powers is somehow even more enjoyable than watching the family struggle with villainy.  This is just a rip-off of the Fantastic Four, isn’t it? To the point where I have no idea why Dash doesn’t just have fire powers, because the other three are already basically The Thing’s, Mr. Fantastic’s, and the Invisible Woman’s power sets. All of the superpowers in the world, and you go with those three out of four? That’s got to be on purpose.

And you also have the whole First Family aspect where these are the stand-out heroes of their universe, and they are related. Syndrome and his robots and inventions are a Dollar Tree Dr. Doom. Hell, there’s even a Mole Man clone in the form of the Underminer!

I never got used to Holly Hunter’s voice as Elasti-Girl. That is NOT what I expected her to sound like, as weird as that is. All these years of not having seen this movie, that’s a different voice than I had in my head. It’s weird, I know. I don’t have an explanation for this one. But it made Helen sound older or something than I imagined. Hunter’s voice ACTING is great; she is believable and expresses everything perfectly. I just couldn’t get past the “voice” part of it all.  When Jack-Jack starts developing powers, it’s pretty funny. Watching Bob struggle with him and then Edna fawn over him is fun. But when it comes to danger, he’s a big Deus Ex Machina who can do whatever the story needs… or at least, whatever the story thinks is amusing. 

I get why they went the direction they did with Jack-Jack (hell, it’s ANOTHER correlation to the Fantastic Four with Franklin Richards being so powerful), but I wish they had shown a bit more restraint. 

OVERALL

These were both worth the watches. I may be in the minority, but I preferred part two to part one. I thought the climax against Screen Slaver aboard the boat and in the sky was far superior to the fight against Syndrome, and the stuff with Mr. Incredible staying with the kids was a lot of fun. Both movies are very good, however. I hear a third is in the works, and now I can’t wait!

The Incredibles Part 1: Three-And-A-Half Stars Out Of Five

The Incredibles Part 2: Four Stars Out Of Five

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