The Incredibles

After all the rage from last month’s reviews, I figured it’d be therapeutic to start March by writing about something fun, and let’s face it—if there are two companies that know how to make fun movies, they’re Disney and Pixar.  In 2004, in the wake of the wildly winning Finding Nemo, they brought their formidable fun-making forces to the world of superheroes.  The result?  The Incredibles, which ended up netting another few bajillion dollars for its creators.  Was it deserved?  I think we all know the answer to that, but let’s take a look anyway.

So we start off with faux-news interviews with three of our main characters—Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, and Frozone. (Though in the case of Frozone, I’m afraid I have to use the term “main characters” rather loosely.)  It basically serves to introduce us to each of their personalities: Mr. Incredible is slightly full of himself, Elastigirl is your independent action girl, and Frozone likes the super-babes.  Later in the film, we find out that Incredible’s hubris leads to the creation of a supervillain, Elastigirl becomes a housewife, and Frozone will be a henpecked husband.  Oh, the irony!

After the intro, we see Mr. Incredible as himself, Bob Parr, driving innocently down the street when he keeps getting distracted by typical problems like a kitty in a tree, a suicide jumper, and annoying stalker/wannabe sidekick Buddy.  Happens to the best of us.  Buddy, calling himself Incrediboy, insists that he can be a hero despite his lack of powers.  He does appear to be highly intelligent, having invented a pair of rocket boots so he can fly, but Mr. Incredible gives him the brush-off and sends him home with the cops. And that’s when Mr. Incredible suddenly remembers, oh yeah, he’s supposed to be marrying Elastigirl right now.  Whoops.  He shows up insanely late, but the ceremony goes well enough.  What could happen now?

Well, there’s that.  I always liked this idea of superheroes being confronted with the downside of their heroics, as it’s something I wonder about every time I watch a show where the hero is responsible for massive property damage.  Remember that scene in The Dark Knight where Batman just trashes a shopping mall with the Bat-pod?  Think how much more awesome it would have been if one of the vendors threw a pretzel at him and yelled at him for wrecking his food cart.

So anyway, the trial (and all the subsequent trials from people who jumped on the bandwagon) goes rather badly, with the end result that all of the superheroes are pressured into giving up their lives of crime-busting.  We check in with Mr. Incredible fifteen years after this decree to see that his Bob Parr identity has taken the least heroic job possible—insurance agent.  Initially, this confused me, because wouldn’t Bob have already needed a job as his civilian self even when he was also Mr. Incredible?  Why couldn’t he just continue on with that job instead of forcing himself to do a job he clearly hates?  But the explanation for this does come a bit later, so it’s all good.

Meanwhile, Elastigirl, now Helen Parr, has her hands full with their superpowered kids—Dashiell, nicknamed Dash, who uses his superspeed to play pranks on his teacher; and the painfully shy (shrinking) Violet, who can turn invisible and generate forcefields.  They’ve also got a supposedly non-powered infant named Chekhov S. Gun—er, that is… Jack-Jack. *cough* On this particular day, Dash was sent to the principal’s office as the result of a prank gone almost wrong, and Helen tries to talk to him about it on the drive home from school.  They end up discussing what it means to be normal vs. special.  “Everyone’s special, Dash,” Helen sighs, clearly having had this conversation a million times.  Dash just grumbles in reply, “Which is another way of saying no one is.”  That’s a really interesting point, actually—one that was already hinted at by “Incrediboy”.  What does it mean to be normal?  What does it mean to be special?  Is being born with superpowers the only way to be special?  We don’t get an answer for that here, just an awkward pause.

The awkward fest continues at the dinner table.  Now that they’re all put together, we can see the extent of the Parr family’s dysfunction—Bob is more interested in reading the paper than talking to his family, Dash and Violet fight all the time (using their powers, no less), and Helen is just trying to hold the family together while discouraging use of superpowers as much as possible.  This pretty much sums it up:

Let’s play the Feud!

Thankfully, the fight is brought to an abrupt end when Frozone shows up as his alter ego, who is only ever identified as Lucius.  …You know, between naming the Caucasian hero’s trusty black friend “Lucius”, the super-speedy blond kid “Dash” (not to mention giving him a predominantly red costume), and the stretchy heroine “Elastigirl”, I’m surprised DC didn’t sue Pixar into oblivion before they could ever finish the film.  Though actually, the whole “Elastigirl” thing resulted in the character being redubbed “Mrs. Incredible” in the toy lines and such.  What was I saying?  Oh yeah.  Lucius shows up for his and Bob’s weekly “bowling night”, by which I mean they listen to the police scanner for something to do, put on ski masks, and go save people on the sly.  We’re officially in Honeymooners territory now, folks.  Expect Helen to find out about this and make Bob squirm until he threatens to send her to the moon. (And with his strength, he probably could.)

Bob and Lucius end up saving a bunch of office workers from a burning building, but they nearly get caught by the cops in the process.  Lucius, unhappy about the close call, insists that they both go home and never try anything like that again, much to Bob’s disappointment.  But lo and behold, it turns out there’s been a hot blonde lady stalking Frozone this whole time.  After the fire rescue, she calls up her HQ and tells them they should switch their focus to Mr. Incredible instead.  What could this possibly mean??

Before we can worry about that, Bob may have evaded the police but not his wife, who is less than pleased to discover that he’s been moonlighting as a superhero. (To the moon, Helen!) She scolds him for risking their identities, because getting found out would mean having to relocate “again” (which would explain the job at insurance company Insuricare).  The topic of “specialness” is reintroduced here, when Bob insists that the ceremony commemorating Dash’s “graduation” from fourth to fifth grade is “psychotic” and that people aren’t interested in anything or anyone that is truly special.  “They keep coming up with new ways to celebrate mediocrity,” he laments.  Again, a lot of potentially interesting points are being raised here, but they’re just sort of left hanging.  It’s still early in the movie, though, so I wouldn’t expect any of the characters to have any epiphanies at this stage.

The next day is another dull day at work until Bob’s boss calls him into his office for a talk.  He tolerates the lecture until he notices some guy getting mugged outside.  When his boss won’t let him go help the guy, Bob loses it and throws him through the wall.

Don't look at him like that.  Like you've never lost your temper and chucked your boss clear across the building?  I like to think the fact that there are four walls here is a little in-joke of some kind (‘the fourth wall’ and all that).  After that, the boss is not happy because he’s in traction.  Bob’s lawyer friend is not happy because they now have to bribe or brainwash all witnesses so that nobody finds out about Bob having superpowers.  Bob is not happy because he either has to uproot his family for what is apparently the billionth time or figure out some alternative.  Fortuitously, this alternative comes in the form of the hot blonde lady from earlier, named Mirage.  She offers Bob a job being a superhero, retrieving a rogue robot on Nomanisan Island (haha, funny word play is funny).  Anyone else would be suspicious of this.  Mr. Incredible, on the other hand, is so excited at the prospect of being a hero again that he takes the job immediately.  He lies to Helen, telling her that he’s being sent on a business conference, and flies with Mirage out to the island.

Mr. Incredible’s fight on the island with the robot, called an Omnidroid, is the first real action sequence of the film, and it does not disappoint.  The fact that Mr. Incredible isn’t quite as incredible as he used to be is placed front and center, but he’s still a well-rounded (ahem) superhero who doesn’t need to rely solely on brawn to get the job done.  He very cleverly figures out how to stop the robot and does so in spite of his physical limitations.  That’s why this scene—and all the action scenes that come after it—work so well: because it’s not just mindless explosions and butt-kicking.  The heroes are dealing with a highly intelligent and creative villain and therefore have to be even more intelligent and creative in order to defeat him.  And as it turns out, said villain, a.k.a. Mirage’s boss, is also impressed with Mr. Incredible and has Mirage invite him back for more work at an unspecified but evidently more than generous salary.

The new job has returned the pep to Mr. Incredible’s step and he goes all out, buying both himself and his wife new cars, spending time playing with the kids, and working out in abandoned railway stations to get back in tip-top superhero form.  It gets surprisingly suggestive for a Disney cartoon—we see the mister and missus pinching each other’s butts, etc.  All is going swimmingly until Mr. Incredible notices that his supersuit is ripped, so he takes it to the ex-official superhero costume designer, Edna Mode.  I think we’ve all heard of this character, and rightfully so.  Most likely inspired by Oscar-winning costume designer Edith Head, Edna steals the show right out from under everyone else, despite having less screen time than Frozone.  This woman is hilarious.  It’s a good thing this isn’t a video review, because otherwise I’d just spend the rest of the time playing all of Edna’s scenes over and over again.

Like with the supers themselves, Edna was forced to retire and take on some rather less dynamic work designing for fashion models (what’s the point of being a superhero fashion designer if there are no superheroes?).  But Edna is unhappy in her current job and is so enthusiastic about Bob coming out of retirement that she decides to make him a new suit.  Bob, reluctant at first, ultimately agrees, which leads to a discussion on the practicality of capes.

So just to clarify, you're saying that capes are a bad thing?

Back at home, trouble’s a-brewin’ when Helen notices a single strand of blonde hair—Mirage’s hair—on one of Bob’s suits.  This is apparently ample grounds for suspicion (I mean it’s not like it could have gotten stuck there when he and a coworker brushed shoulders in the hallway by accident or anything) and she listens in on a phone call between Bob and Mirage.  It’s all too vague for Helen’s liking, and when she notices the new Edna-style stitching on Bob’s old suit, she tries to pump Edna for information.  Instead, Helen gets roped into paying a call to Edna’s mansion, where she (and we) learn that our favorite fashion designer was so excited about making Bob a new suit that she made suits for the entire Parr family with qualities specific to each of their powers (e.g. Violet’s suit can disappear).  Helen is horrified by all of this, not to mention the fact that Bob has been lying to her about his business trips all this time, and Edna convinces her to make use of the homing device in each family member’s suit to find out exactly where Bob is at this moment.  Unfortunately for Bob… well, we’ll see in a second.

Mr. Incredible, meanwhile, is back on the island, waiting for a new assignment.  The only person to show up is not a person, but a brand new Omnidroid.  He almost gets sliced to ribbons when the Omnidroid’s inventor shows up, and it turns out to be none other than Buddy—oh, excuse me, Syndrome.  Appropriate, as I think he’s got a few.  He thrashes Mr. Incredible around for a while, yelling at him for being a pompous jerk all those years ago, and tries to blow him up.  Unknown to Syndrome, the homicide attempt fails, as Mr. Incredible manages to find refuge in a cave. There he stumbles across the skeleton (!!!) of old superhero chum and Cyclops expy Gazerbeam, who has left a clue burned into the wall—“Kronos.”

Mr. Incredible then sneaks into Syndrome’s headquarters and finds himself in a large computer chamber.  Turns out the word “Kronos” is the computer password, and he discovers that almost all the superheroes of old died battling various versions of the Omnidroid, which Syndrome plans to stick in a rocket and launch at an unspecified city in less than twelve hours, now that it’s been made as invincible as possible thanks to its super test subjects.  This is, of course, the exact moment Helen uses the homing device, which makes an inconveniently loud beeping sound and leads to his capture.

Helen, meanwhile, is devastated that she might be losing Bob to another woman.  Edna, in her last act of the film, slaps some sense into her (with a rolled up newspaper <3), prompting Helen to snag a plane and go after Bob herself.  She fully plans to go alone, but the kids sneak along with her, having left Jack-Jack with a babysitter.  Syndrome finds out they’re coming and sends some missiles out to greet them.  The plane is successfully blown up, leading Syndrome, Mirage, and Mr. Incredible to believe that Incredible’s wife and kids are dead.  In his grief, Bob tries to kill Mirage, but Syndrome calls his bluff.  This is when Mirage finally realizes that maybe working for a hairspray-addicted megalomaniac wasn’t such a good career move, and they leave Mr. Incredible alone, crying in the dark.  Man, this is getting pretty bleak for a Disney film.  For all the witty fun of the rest of the movie, this… is flat-out depressing.  Which I guess shouldn’t surprise me after the first fifteen minutes of Up, but we wouldn’t know about that for another four or five years or so when this came out.

But, of course, the rest of the Incredibles aren’t dead and have managed to make their way to the same island where Syndrome is holed up.  Elastigirl hides the kids in a cave (heroes who like caves—imagine that) and gives them each a mask, explaining that their secret identities are their “most valuable possessions.”  Which is why she doesn’t bother to give them codenames.  And why she screams “VIOLET!!” in the middle of the street later in the film.  It all makes sense if you think about it.

Elastigirl goes to find her husband, leaving the kids to fend for themselves.  Violet and Dash have a bit of a tiff over the situation, during which Violet insists that their parents’ marriage could be in danger.  Dash’s response:



"So the bad guys are trying to wreck Mom and Dad's marriage."

Argh!  Brain… overloading… from sudden influx… of One More Day jokes… *twitches on floor*

As it turns out, the cave the kids are in is also the tunnel through which the extra energy, a.k.a. flames, from the rocket is expelled.  They barely make it out in time to avoid being toasted, only to set off an intruder alert that sends them running for their lives yet again.  This leads to yet another cool action scene, but it also involves Dash killing a couple of guys.  Now it was definitely self-defense and all that but shouldn’t it have disturbed the ten-year-old just a wee tiny bit?  What, is pranking the teacher a gateway drug to homicide?  Aw, man, he’s going to turn into a supervillain in the next movie, isn’t he?

Meanwhile, Elastigirl saves Mr. Incredible and they sort out the whole misunderstanding with Mirage.  Elastigirl is still a bit miffed over the situation but quickly forgets about it when they find out their kids are in trouble, at which point they naturally run to the rescue.  After they (literally) bump into the kids and squeeze in a quick reunion hug, they find themselves surrounded by Syndrome’s lackeys.  Quick, everybody strike a pose!

Perfect!  The posing works about as long as it takes Syndrome to notice what they’re doing and drag them back to the containment unit.  Here, he gets a particularly good monologue going about how he is the only person who can defeat the Omnidroid about to be unleashed on the city, so he will become the bestest hero evar when he defeats it.  After Syndrome leaves to complete his evil plans, Mr. Incredible gives his own monologue, apologizing to his family for being such a lousy husband and father instead of, you know, trying to get himself and his family out of danger.  Luckily, Violet takes the initiative and frees them all.  With a little help from Mirage, they escape the island altogether and take off (in a rocket!) after Syndrome and the Omnidroid.

This is where Frozone briefly rejoins the story, just long enough to help beat up the Omnidroid before vanishing into thin air at the finale.  The final battle kicks off when Syndrome attempts to execute his master plan, only to wind up losing control of the Omnidroid.  Syndrome is sent running for his life as the Incredibles and Frozone take on the rampaging robot.  It’s a great fight scene, just like all the others, and all of the characters get a chance to shine and use their special (lol) talents to save the city.  After the Omnidroid’s defeat, the grateful citizens of Whateversville applaud our heroes, welcoming them back with open arms. 

Bob’s lawyer friend (does he have a name?) drives the Incredibles home in a limo—yes, because taking the Incredibles back to the Parrs’ house in such a flashy manner is a great way to maintain their non-existent secret identities!  The lawyer promises that they don’t have to worry about the property damage sustained during their fight with the Omnidroid and that the government is already working on capturing Syndrome.  Elastigirl, however, is more concerned with checking her phone messages, which consist entirely of mysteriously frantic calls from Jack-Jack’s babysitter as well as a “thank you for sending a replacement sitter” message.  The only problem?  Elastigirl never sent a replacement sitter! 

 

Bum-bum-BUMMMMM!!!

(Seriously, though.  If I came home to that scene, I would need to change my tights before I did any baby-saving.)

Syndrome’s new master plan apparently consists of training Jack-Jack to be his sidekick, and he blasts through the roof to rendezvous with his getaway plane.  Bob and Helen are quite understandably panicking, but there isn’t any need: this is the moment when Jack-Jack’s latent superpowers suddenly make themselves known—apparently, he can change into whatever he wants (fire, lead, etc.), which distracts Syndrome long enough for the Incredibles to get their baby back.  Syndrome’s demise, so presciently predicted by Edna’s “no capes” rant, comes when his cape gets stuck in the turbine of his own getaway jet.  Cue the house-shattering kaboom that leaves the Parr home a smoking wreck, but they’re so happy and satisfied with a job well done and don’t seem to care that everything they ever owned is now barbecue.  Driver’s licenses?  Vacation souvenirs?  Pictures of Grandma?  Not important!

The final scene shows us the Parrs’ life three months in the future.  The entire family has turned out for Dash’s track meet, where he finishes in second place on purpose and Violet finally manages to ask a boy she likes out on a date.  After the meet, who should appear but John Ratzenberger, making his obligatory Pixar cameo. (What, you thought they’d forget?)  He’s playing the Underminer, a thinly veiled homage to the Mole Man, and he’s arrived to “declare war on peace and happiness.” (If there’s a sequel, I hope he’s the villain.) The Parrs prove one last time that they have no concept of what a secret identity is supposed to be by putting on their masks right in the middle of the street and preparing to kick his butt.  At least have the decency to find a telephone booth first!

As you might have guessed, I love this film.  It’s funny, most of the characters are likable, the animation is top-notch (though that’s not unusual for Pixar), and the action scenes will have you on the edge of your seat (or whatever you’re sitting on).  That being said, I do have a few problems with it.

The theme of specialness and what makes people special is my biggest problem because it is brought up and then kind of ignored.  You’d think it’d be important, since this is the issue that turned Buddy into Syndrome and made the entire Parr family miserable for years, but that theme seems to disappear after Syndrome tells the Incredibles about his evil plan (“And when everyone is super… no one will be.”).  It would have been nice to see a redefining of the words “special” and “super” and how no, you don’t need to have superpowers to be special because it’s what’s on the inside that counts (oh come on, it’s Disney-Pixar, they could get away with it).  I guess they sort of mention it when Bob realizes how special his family is during their captivity in the containment unit, but personally, I think a theme this important deserved more closure than that.

Also, the public in this film is extremely fickle.  They ignore the super-related property damage for years before suddenly turning on their heroes, and then fifteen years later they decide supers are awesome again despite all of the destruction during the fight with the Omnidroid?  What changed in the intervening time to make them believe the property damage was worth it?  Unless this was supposed to be some sort of commentary on the ‘50s-era paranoia surrounding communism or comic books or homosexual infiltration of the American government or whatever and I’m just missing it. (There were a lot of things to be paranoid about in the 1950s.)

The last aspect I sort of have a problem with is Dash.  He doesn’t quite feel like a complete character—there’s no development whatsoever.  He’s the same kid from beginning to end, which might have been fine if he didn’t need to learn anything in this film, but he does (we first meet him in the principal’s office for putting a tack on his teacher’s chair, for heaven’s sake).  Everybody else learns their lessons: Bob learns to value his family, Helen learns that denying who you really are leads to unhappiness, Violet gains self-confidence, and Dash… um… joins the school track team, thus getting exactly what he wanted without having to learn anything.  This kid is a supervillain-in-training, I swear.  In fact, now that I think of it, I don’t like this part at all.  Why does Dash still need to join a sports team?  Shouldn’t being a junior superhero be enough activity to channel his excess energy?  If anything, they should have used this segment to show that faux-graduation of Dash’s that Bob didn’t want to go to.  That would have shown Bob’s acceptance, love, and support of his family, even if he still thought the ceremony was stupid.  Plus it wouldn’t have created this problem of Dash essentially cheating at sports and thus risking expulsion (not to mention their “secret” IDs), because punching out supervillains should have kept him occupied and given him a greater sense of accomplishment than second-place trophies or putting tacks on the teacher’s chair ever could.

A more positive thing I wanted to bring up is the music.  Not being a music expert, I rarely take note of a film’s soundtrack unless it is super-fantastic or spectacularly bad, and the soundtrack for The Incredibles definitely falls into the former category.  As others have noted, it is highly reminiscent of the James Bond soundtracks.  It’s snappy, energetic, and very superheroic.  A big ol’ tip of the hat to Michael Giacchino for this one.

Also, as an added bonus, the DVD has a short film called “Jack-Jack Attack”, which fills in the gap of what caused Kari the babysitter’s panicked calls to Elastigirl and how, because the panic was caused by Jack-Jack’s powers of doom and destruction, the government had to erase her memories afterward.  It’s amusing, but I think I would have liked a short about Edna’s origins as a superhero costume designer more.  We never get an explanation for her presence, she just sort of shows up, is awesome, and then leaves.  Or better yet, maybe a short on Mirage, explaining just what her powers are, where she came from (she was never a superhero), and how she ended up working for Syndrome.  Out of all the characters available to star in a short film, Jack-Jack and Kari seem to be pretty low on the totem pole of necessity, but it’s harmless enough.

The point I’m trying to make here is that The Incredibles easily holds its own against the other Pixar gems.  It’s a parody of superhero movies almost as much as it’s a superhero movie (the “no capes” mantra is extremely self-aware), and it succeeds on both counts.  And yes, it’s got some cheesy Disney-style lines and stuff in there, so there’s no forgetting that this is a Disney-Pixar superhero movie, but that’s not a bad thing.  Personally, I think that the more “mainstream” superheroes could take a lesson in light-heartedness from this film.  So returning to my original question—did this movie deserve to make a bajillion dollars at the box office?  Yes, mostly.  I’d shave off a couple million for the reasons I’ve already specified, but if you’re looking for two hours of hilarious, action-packed, superhero-themed entertainment, look no further than The Incredibles.

Next Time: Gonzo learns that heroines are interchangeable, astronomy is flexible, and the president has a thing for shiny green objects.

Images from The Incredibles