The Boston Red Sox are the champions of the world. This you probably already know, as well as the fact that their World Series victory is their first in eighty-six years and was a tremendously big deal among baseball fans in every city except New York and St. Louis. What you’re probably wondering is what this has to do with The Incredibles, the Pixar film that marks the company’s most adult animated adventure to date.
This story of a superhero family arrives in theaters just over a week after The Sawx (as they’re known in Boston) squeezed their last out, thereby ensuring a supremacy that had eluded generations of loyalists who went to their graves convinced the team was cursed. Having spent the first twenty-five years of my life in Beantown, there was no doubt that a trip home was in order, to witness the smiles, the love, the unprecedented joy. This necessitated a red-eye flight that arrived in Boston at 4:45am, six hours of standing in the rain, and a flight back to L.A. the next day that got in at 2:00 am PDT.
When the e-mail came in for a last-minute screening of The Incredibles Monday night, it was a tired pair of eyes that watched over the “yes” reply. The film has a pedigree: Pixar is one of the few film entities that can claim to have never made a bad film, and writer-director Brad Bird is the man behind The Iron Giant, perhaps the most underrated film of the last decade. Sitting in the theater waiting for the lights to dim, the eyelids dropped and the puddles of drool began to form in mouth corners. This wasn’t going to be easy.
Then it began, and exhaustion was never again a concern. This is a movie that you can’t take yours eyes off, no matter how tired they might be.
The first thing you notice is the animation – crisp, clean, filled with a retro style that marks Bird’s intense appreciation of that fifties futuristic aesthetic, much like the way the “duck and cover” aspect of it was captured in Iron Giant. Next, you notice the off-beat approach, signified by some grainy, deliberately ill-edited “interviews” that have Mr. Incredible (voiced by Craig T. Nelson) making the mistake of trying to walk off with his microphone still attached to his lapel. Many won’t get the look, and many others won’t get the gag. Like my beloved Sox, The Incredibles will frustrate some people, while others won’t be able to get enough.
The film begins with Mr. Incredible in his heyday, heroically bounding around the city and saving citizens, police, and cats stuck in trees. The Fantastic Four-meets-Watchmen plot has the big guy and his fellow heroes retiring when litigation forces the government to put them all into hiding.
Flash forward to more than a decade later, when Mr. I is known as Bob Parr and works as an insurance adjuster. His wife, the former Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), now spends her days at home watching the kids: troublemaking Dash (Spencer Fox), shy Violet (Sarah Vowell), and baby Jack-Jack. When the dim but well-meaning Bob ends up sneaking off to recapture his glory days, he gets tangled up in a battle with the evil Syndrome (Jason Lee) that will force the whole family to come to his rescue.
A Pixar film can only really be compared to other Pixar movies. As such, it has to be pointed out that this is probably the least funny of their movies, featuring some exposition-laden scenes that go several minutes without a joke. The big gags will make you laugh, but there’s more time between them than in, say, Finding Nemo. That said, this is by far the best-looking Pixar film, as well as the most action-filled and most adult-oriented.
Your head will spill while you watch pre-teen Dash rocket his way across jungle, beach and ocean in a dizzying sequence that absolutely needs to be seen on as big a screen as possible. External shots of Syndrome’s lair (located on a remote island inside a volcano, natch) are similar candy for the eye that show just how close Pixar is to someday making a full-on photorealistic sci fi movie.
The kryptonite that brings down The Incredibles is the script, which too often goes for superheroes-living-real-life jokes already blanketed by everything from Mystery Men to The Tick. The main plot, which revolves around a bad guy with a desire to put the world in danger so he can save it, seems bored with itself. Many of the surprises about the baby or the capes are forecast well in advance, assuring that you don’t need Spidey Sense to see how they will play out.
The Incredibles is brave enough to kill off some characters, which is a very good thing. It also has enough guts to go off on some hilarious asides, most notably those involving the film’s duo of breakout characters. You may be familiar with Frozone, the ice-wielding superhero voiced to perfection by Samuel L. Jackson, in the film’s long playing trailers.
Less prominently featured in the ad campaign, however, is Edna Mode (voiced by Bird), a brash, miniature costume designer who specializes in superhero outfits. Mode and Frozone are both uproarious side diversions who leave the audience wanting more. Unlike the Incredibles, who fit so cleanly into the roles of Mom, Dad, son and daughter, you have no idea where these side characters are going or what will come out of their mouths next.
Brad Bird has a different sensibility than Pixar. Instead of loading a machine gun with laughs, he prefers his humor to come naturally out of good-natured, exaggerated situations.
Rather than dealing with talking toys or bugs, he prefers to enhance our world and simply place something extraordinary among us.
His visual flair seems to have pushed the Pixar animators to a level unsurpassed (a scene where the characters get wet looks amazing), and watching the facial expressions on these human characters while remembering Toy Story makes you realize just how far they’ve come in only nine years.
Pixar also needs to be commended for their impeccable voice casting. Lately, many animated films have fallen into the trap of casting a big name just so they can boost the marquee (see Shark Tale). Pixar, however, realizes that a great cartoon character needs the most appropriate voice, not the one with the most fame. Craig T. Nelson’s booming baritone harnesses the perfect pitch, as well as the ideal tinge of sheepish guilt, for his character.
Lee, at first a tad jarring, wins you over as he spits out shameless glee at being the villain. And how is it that no one has thought of using Samuel L. Jackson’s gloriously incredulous intonations in an animated film until now?
The Incredibles was like a shot of espresso injected directly into the veins. It kept a pair of tired eyes wide open and fully entertained. You’d have to be a fool, probably, to predict that the Red Sox will win another World Series in my lifetime. It may be just as foolish to expect a film filled with this much fun to come along again any time soon.
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