Everything the Fantastic Four films failed to be - with added animation
"Supers", superpowered humans, were once seen as heroes and revered all around. But the constant collateral damage from their good deeds forced the government to create The Supers Relocation Program, where all supers would be relocated to live amongst civilians and not use their superpowers. Bob Parr was once a famous super-hero known as Mister Incredible, and since settling down with his wife Helen, also a previous Super, and starting up a family, Bob is bored with his suburban life and longs for the glory days once more. Luckily, he is given a chance to enter the superhero game again, but discovers a villianous face from his past behind it.
Let's be honest, Pixar crafting their own take on the superhero genre is bound to be something extraordinary, and the film doesn't fall short of expectations. Brad Bird makes a brilliant satire upon the superhero genre, simultaneously showing us why superheroes shouldn't wear capes, whilst managing to humanise the character of Bob Parr as we are shown a man with unimaginable strength forced to work in a dead-end job, day-in, day-out. The film also manages to take a number of cues from the spy genre, James Bond films to be specific, as the super-villian has his own island complete with a rocket and a volcano, and I noticed the score also managed to be quite similar to the kind of music you'd hear in a spy movie.
The voice work done in this film is nothing short of brilliant, with everybody shining from Craig T Nelson to Samuel L Jackson. Jason Lee is, without a doubt, the stand-out voice artist in this film, perfectly embodying the various roles of both the devoted young fan and the supervillian, and Lee makes a comfortable transition between the two different types of roles, so that no matter how many times his character geeks out, it doesn't detract from how villianous his character truly is.
The film also manages to make good on their characters, giving us a wonderfully well-rounded family and a supervillian who each have their own character arc, which fleshes each of them out to make sure we aren't given two-dimensional characters we don't care about. I would say that Frozone, fellow Super and best friend of Bob Parr, isn't as well rounded as the Parr family, but he is an awesomely cool character (helped by the fact he's voiced by Samuel L Jackson) that this becomes merely a nitpick.
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| Nothing like a family's embrace |
As is expected with Pixar movies, the animation is brilliantly done, with every little detail drawn up to standard in each scene, and the fights are especially well animated and exciting to watch, proving once more why Pixar stands above all the other animation studios.
One part I especially liked about this film was that, whilst being a satire on the superhero genre, it managed to often get dark and go serious, with the stand-out scene being Helen Parr telling her two children how the henchmen aren't the campy Saturday morning television variety, but rather are the kind of people who won't hesitate to pull a gun on them. I felt scenes like these were needed to help highlight how superheroics aren't all fun and games, but in reality are quite life-threatening and dangerous.
The Incredibles is another step forward for Pixar, beautifully crafting a brilliant spoof on the superhero genre, whilst pulling off the comedy and the wonderful character moments that are pretty much Pixar's trademark, as well as giving us wonderfully animated action scenes on top of the brilliant animation.
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