The Incredibles (2004) Directed and Written by Brad Bird.

The Incredibles follows the lives of super heroes; Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) and Elastigirl, (Holly Hunter.) These two superheroes live lives of excitement and danger. In fact, they have difficulty keeping a simple appointment with out stopping to foil a high speed chase, catch a robber, prevent a suicide, foil a super villain, deal with an over eager fan, save a train full of people, and get a cat out of a tree. And all of that on the way to their own wedding.

But the world changed. Mr. Incredible was sued by the man whose suicide he thwarted. Lawsuit after lawsuit piled up, and soon public sentiment turned against the supers, and soon, they all had to turn in their capes, and live normal non-super lives.

And that is what Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl did, as Bob and Helen Parr, insurance adjuster and house wife. They had two children, Violet, (Sarah Vowell) whose powers involve turning invisible and generating Force Fields, and Dash, (Spencer Fox) who is appropriately enough, a speedster. They also have a baby, Jack-Jack.

Raising two super kids and a baby is no easy task. And what makes a bad situation even harder are Bob’s dreams of glory days. On Wednesday nights he and Frozone, (Samuel L. Jackson) a super hero with ice powers, say they are going bowling, then sit in the car, reliving the glory days, and listening to the police scanner.

Bob is able to lift trains. Bob is not allowed to lift trains. Instead Bob is expected to work for the soul challenged little tyrant Gilbert Huph, (Wallace Shawn) a micromanaging little Nazi who is very concerned that a very high percentage of Bob Parr’s customers seem to be able to actually file claims and have them paid. “They’re penetrating the bureaucracy, Bob!”

Bob is a man on the verge of a midlife crisis.

And it happens. Mr. Huph calls Bob in for a dressing down. Bob spots a mugging from the window. When he gets up to go help, Huph calls him back down, threatening to fire him. The mugging proceeds and the perp gets away. And Huph is fine with that, he just hopes that their company does not insure them.

Bob throws Mister Huph through six walls.

But when he gets home, before he can tell his wife, he finds a mysterious packet from a mysterious woman named Mirage (Elizabeth Pina .) Mirage offers him three years salary to perform a job for her employer. So Bob invents a convention he has to attend, and takes her up on her offer.

Mr. Incredible is flown to a volcanic island, where he is told, a test facility has lost control of an experimental combat robot. He is airdropped in, finds it, and fairly quickly, disables it. He is happy, his employer is happy, and all seems well.

Bob spends the next two months pretending to go to work every morning while he really goes to the train yards and works at getting rid of his middle aged paunch. He buys a new car, and he takes his super suit, damaged in the fight with the robot, in for repairs to the only person who can do it, the person who made it in the first place, the irrepressible Edna Mode. (Brad Bird.) Edna’s performance alone was worth the price of admission.

Edna agrees, as an after thought, to fix “the hobo suit” but only if she can make him a new suit. You can tell Edna enjoyed designing for heroes. And she is eager to get her hand back in.

So, two months or so after his first assignment, Mr. Incredible is called back for a second job. His second job is to be killed by the improved model of the first robot he defeated.

Meanwhile, back at home, Helen has noticed some changes in Bob’s behavior. She is concerned that he might be having an affair; she has found a blond hair on his suit. Then she notices the patch job on the super suit, and she knows only one person could have done it. Edna Mode.

So she calls Edna, who is delighted to see her, and tells her to come by and see the new suits in an hour. There is no talking around Edna, so Helen goes. There, she sees the collection of super suits Edna has made, one for Jack-Jack, one for Dash, one for Violet, (it like her, can turn invisible) and one for her, Elastigirl. Helen is confused. Edna is not helpful, only planting the seeds of doubt, watering them, and feeding them with a good grade of fertilizer. She also points out that the suit she made for Mr. Incredible has a Global Positioning Homing Device. Helen activates it.

Presumed dead, Mr. Incredible is free to move around the super villains hide out. He discovers that his mysterious benefactor has been hiring heroes to fight his super robots. Most died the first round through. If one lived, he was invited back, and killed by the improved model; just like Mr. Incredible was. Then the GPS device activates and Mr. Incredible is discovered, and captured.

Elastigirl calls in some favors and obtains a jet. She is going after her man. Unfortunately, Dash and Violet have also stowed away on board.

So, when the island shoots down the plane, Mr. Incredible thinks that his entire family has been destroyed.

And that is all the plotting I am giving away. It takes you almost to the halfway point.

What really works about this movie is the fact that these super heroes are people. Mr. Incredible can stop a moving train, but he has a middle aged spread; getting soggy around the middle. He is frustrated that he can no longer use his powers to help people, and like many sports heroes and forgotten actors, he lives surrounded by mementos of the halcyon days when he was allowed to be a hero. His theme song would be Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen.

Helen is a house wife. She used to use her powers to stop bad guys, now she has to use them to corral a couple of kids with super powers. She has made the adjustment better than Bob, but only because she is able to keep focused better than he. Her eye is always on the bottom line, and when you have children, that is usually where the bottom line is drawn; what is best for my kids. Helen, like her alter ego, is flexible. She’s adaptable. She also has a slight speech impediment, sounding just a little bit like Dear Abby. This is an extremely humanizing touch.

Dash is a kid. He is a little boy who wants to run and jump and compete with the other little boys, but he can’t. His judgment is not well formed enough to be trusted. So he acts out, things like putting a tack in the teachers chair…at super speed.

Violet is a shy young girl, on the verge of becoming a teenager. She is deeply mortified by her family, and completely unsure of herself, which is completely normal for a tween girl. Her invisibility is a manifestation of these basic insecurities.

These heroes are not defined by their powers, if anything; their powers are defined by them.

And the show is funny. When Dash is getting dressed down about the tack in the seat incident, and Bob finds out it was caught on tape, his first reaction is not, “bad show, son, you could have exposed us all” no its “really? You were on tape and they still couldn’t bust you? How fast do you think you were going?” all the while cutting the boy’s meat, and saws right through his plate.

Edna Mode is about the funniest thing ever on film. When asked to repair Bob’s super suit, she rants, “This hobo suit! I would not let you be caught dead in it.”
Bob: “But you made it, E.”
Edna: “I never look back, darling. It detracts from the now. No, it will have to be completely redone. I am far too busy, so ask me quickly before I again become sane.”
Bob: “Um, please…?”
Edna: “Darling! You push too hard! But Okay. It will have to be bold simple, a classic!”

And the movie has a lot of heart. It is when they work together that they are at their best. When their plane is shot down, Elastigirl becomes a boat, and Dash becomes the outboard. When they are being shot at, Violet leaps in front of Dash, surrounding him with her force field. Suspended above him, she is out of the way, and Dash takes of running like a gerbil hyped up on coffee beans inside a hamster ball. Like a giant pinball, they begin taking out the bad guys.

They are family first, super heroes second. And that is what makes them unstoppable.

This is oddly enough, my favorite Super Hero movie. There is no pre-existing comic for them to get it wrong from, and the Incredibles are generic enough to represent all heroes. It’s definitely a kid’s movie, but the best movies anywhere are those that are aimed at kids, but smart enough for their parents to enjoy as well. This is one of those movies.

Check out these Comics made into Movies:

The Justice League: New Frontier
The 300
Constantine
Batman Begins





Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up to Age 4