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A Review of "The Incredibles"
First off, this is Slashdot. You know, News for nerds, yadda yadda. So, let's start off with talking about the special effects, or more generally, Pixar showing off all that they have learned and accomplished.
The big hype in the animation sector has been the characters - real human people. Don't be fooled by the hype. Pixar has been doing humans as characters since "Toy Story". With the single exception of "A Bug's Life", human beings have featured as a major character in every Pixar film, and while the effect here is fantastic, it is evolutionary, not revolutionary. No, what stands out in terms of technical acheivement here is the movie's stunning use of light. Sure, "Finding Nemo" accomplished a lot here, but in that film, light was a tool to give depth to the water that surrounded the characters. Here in "The Incredibles" the light is a thing unto itself. Gorgeous shadows, warm red lava, sunlight against clouds, all of these things are breathtaking. The use of sunlight, especially in the jungle sequences, give objects a three dimensionality they have never possessed in a Pixar film before. It's clear that Pixar didn't have the chops prior to this film to do action sequences, because prior to this, the feeling of moving in a three dimensional space just wasn't there.
The movie itself is not just a breakthrough technically, it's a very different movie from previous Pixar productions. This is very intentional. All previous Pixar movies have been dreamed up primarily by John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton, Pixar veterans. So the story goes, these guys are looking back at Pixar history and while they see the series of wonderful made films that the rest of us have seen, apparently they also saw something else: an encroaching rut. There was a very real chance that Pixar could have become the next Disney in a very short time, making well produced and financially successful repeats of their earlier successes for years on end. They didn't want that to happen. And that takes fresh blood. Enter Brad Bird. Bird was an art student with Lasster, and had made one feature film five years ago - the sady underseen "Iron Giant". Brad Bird was challenged to make a different kind of movie, with complete creative control - he wrote and directed. This gamble paid off hugely.
This is not a kids movie. Seriously. Previous Pixar films have been consumate kids movies, movies so well made, and so funny that parents could enjoy them. And there are even a few adult gags the kids might not get. "The Incredibles" is a completely different tack. "The Incredibles" is an action movie, first and foremost, one of the best of the current crop of superhero films. Then it is a family film second, and a kids movie third, if at all.
To give you the basics: the world is full of superheros. The biggest are Mr. Incredible, super strong and invulnerable, Elastigirl, a Ms. Fantastic of sorts, and Frozone, a Silver Surfer/Iceman hybrid. Due to events that occur on Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl's wedding day, superheros wind up on the wrong end of - get this for deja vu - lawsuits. Lawsuits by the thousands. The government comes up with a relocation program, hiding the supers and pardoning them from actions performed in spandex, with the agreement that they hero no more.
Mr. Incredible becomes Bob Parr, an overweight insurance adjuster, with three kids. The symbolism is rampant. Once incredible, now he must suppress both his gifts and his insatiable need to help people, getting in trouble with his boss for actually helping their customers. From incredible, to just par. He's huge. He fills up the entirety of his cubical space, he fills up his entire car, he bends doorknobs, and cutting through his son's steak, he cuts through the table. He is too big for the small world that society wants to peg him in.
On the other hand, he's missing the one incredible part of his life - his family. His son Dash is tired of suppressing his lightning speed, and his teenage daughter Violet is tired of moving everytime the government needs to cover up her father's identity. When she can't hide behind her goth hair, she uses her powers to turn invisible. Managing the two of them and their third child, a normal baby named Jack Jack, Elastigirl is getting tired of being the only real parent.
Their marriage is strained, their kids are young and angry, his job is about to fall apart, and her patience is thin. It's a domestic situation primed to explode, and for the many of us out their who have seen couples divorce, we know exactly where it's going.
Except something happens.
And thereby hangs a tale. As you can see, this isn't some allegory about our lives from the point of view of a bug or a toy or a monster. It IS our lives. But with superpowers. Much like the also fabulous "Shaun of the Dead" the real story is a human one, but framed within spectacular events. The visuals are awesome, the special effects are fabulous, and the dialog not only funny but at times witty. I can bet that 90% of Slashdotters will see themselves on screen, most likely identifying with the daughter Violet or the villain Syndrome.
The performances are of course amazing. Pixar continues its talent of finding distinctive and expressive voices in the world of more traditional acting. Jason Lee as syndrome hints at his performance in "Dogma" and Craig T. Nelson shows us he can be so much more than just the coach from Coach. Holly Hunter shows her never ending flexibility (no pun intended), and newcomer Sarah Vowell as Violet (from National Public Radio's "This American Life") is quite delightful. And the only complaint about Samuell L. Jackson is that there isn't enough of him.
One sad difference between "The Incredibles" and Pixar's previous offerings is that it has a few minor niggles. Regardless of how you feel about Pixar's previous work, it was all carefully and consummately made. The movie's mixture of family interactions and superheros almost always works, but is slightly shakey with its villain Syndrome. He's got great lines, a good backstory, and a perfectly over the top performance from Jason Lee, but something just doesn't quite work, and that's the first time I've ever said that about a Pixar flick. But in the end it doesn't matter. So much works here, that the little stuff gets washed away.
"I AM NOT A TRACER!"
"This food is problematic."
I was amazed at the rendering of long, wet hair. I dug up this cool paper on the subject.
With every movie, computer graphics takes another step. Antz had water, Lion King had computer-generated herds... Although we're really close, we'll get to a point where the animation no longer constrains the story.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
...was that the scene in the teaser trailer, of Mr. I attempting to buckle his belt, is not in the film.
Other than that, a pretty good movie, though perhaps not in the same league as Toy Story and A Bug's Life.
It wasnt in the movie......Only the trailer... I love when they have exclusive shots for trailers so they dont ruin the movie.....
keanmarine.com
That may be so but most of these lead-ins were not made to be precede Pixar films. Most of them are short films on their own that Pixar has made in the past. Boundin' was made last year and was an Oscar nominated animated short film. I'm not sure what criteria is used to pick these shorts but I think that they are probably Pixar's way of recognizing their employees and their work.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Better than Shrek 2, in my opinion.
The Incredibles has less of the movie spoof scenes, but makes up for it with a more compelling story.
The pop culture references are mainly about 50s/60s era super-heroes, but you won't miss it once the story gets going.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
I'm guessing ebert & roeper's kids must have really bad ADD, or you work for dreamworks.
my nephews loved it.
Another hidden gem in this movie is Wallace Shawn (Vizzini from The Princess Bride) as "Bob Parr's" boss in the insurance company. Fortunately, his role includes the lightning quick monologues that he's famous for.
Blizzard does all of their animation in-house, and they are very well known for their high quality work. Their artists are obsessive with detail, and the standards for getting into one of their animation jobs are sky-high.
And represent the game they're trying to sell? That's a matter of opinion: they're trying to make the most exciting and visually pleasing movie possible using the source material, which they do, and do rather well. A video reflecting in-game gameplay would be best served by... recording in-game gameplay, maybe? It sure as hell wouldn't be as interesting to watch, that's for sure.
Actually, where I grew up (California, like a desert), we have owls that live in ground burrows.
Burrowing Owls
Letter To Iran
Actually, there are only about 32 story plots. Back in the thirties a guy name Georges Polti wrote a book describing these "human situations" and Earl Stanley Gardner credits this book with helping him track his stories correctly. ESG actually had a device called a "Plot-o-matic" that was based on this book, but gave it up because it decreased his creative enthusiasm. As I understand it (although I don't have my copy of Polti's book handy) this movie is a classic story of society rejecting someone who is obviously different. "Watchmen", "X-men", "Mutant X" and "The Incredibles" all deal with the same problem, but "Watchmen" and "The Incredibles" take up the story later in the chronology.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
I have to see it again, just for Edna. She's based on the famous Hollywood costume designer Edith Head (471 films credited on IMDB!). Most of her best lines are throwaways, like her annoyance at not being able to design for superheros anymore - just supermodels - "There's nothing super about them, darling!" There's also a little bit of Elsa Klench and Gloria Vanderbilt thrown in as well.
Re-reading what I just wrote, I feel compelled to note that I am, in fact, a hetrosexual male.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
Speaking of powers, "Frozone" is not a "Silver Surfer/Iceman hybrid." He's exactly like Iceman, except that he moves by skiing instead of just standing there and letting the ice propel him.
The fact that all the characters are totally cliched lets you think about all the times you read the old comics and never thought about things they might have to deal with, as well as ways of using their powers together that comic book writers don't think about. (And for that matter, how did Iceman get the ice to propel him along anyway?)
They're not the Fantastic Four, though - not exactly.
Fantastic Four and Incredibles analogs:
The Invisible Woman - Violet
Mr. Fantastic - Elastigirl
Thing - Mr. Incredible
The Torch - arguably nobody
nobody - Dash
So there's one character that doesn't match up. Does Marvel even have a super-fast-and-nothing-else character? They did have a character that looked exactly like Cyclops, with exactly the same power, but he was a very, very minor character. He didn't even have speaking lines.
One thing that I'd like to add is that while all the characters were very well made, they were also slightly stylized, and there weren't a lot of colors or shading effects in any individual character.
Someone could easily make this into a rather inexpensive to make cartoon.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Marvel does indeed have a fairly prominent super-speed character: Quicksilver - son of Magneto, former member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, The Avengers and X-Factor.
They also have "The Whizzer" but I won't try to describe him any further since there are too many versions of him in alternate realities.
If you'll excuse me, I need to crawl back under my rock.
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
It's like the "pop-up" commercials in the middle of TV shows these days - they'll do it until people stop watching. The dots are put on there by burning each print with a laser, and each individual print has a different pattern. The idea is that they can track which print was used to make a copy. Of course this is moronic, as the dots are large enough to be noticable even in a crappy, VCD resolution, copy made with a camcorder in the theater. So any pirate group worth their salt will take a few minutes to clone-paint out the dots with a pirate copy of a tool like Combustion.
Silly, silly Hollywood movie studio executives!
Note: I see at least 100 films a year in the theater, so I'm a good example of the sort of person that the studios really ought not piss off.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
I was actually really excited by the Cars teaser. I think the animation really fit the subject (the animated cars looked great, in my opinion), and based on Pixar's prior teasers, I don't expect this teaser actually gives more than the merest glimpse of what to expect - it certainly didn't reveal any story.
Indeed, MacNN on Friday (apparently crediting USA Today for the info) gave a very brief synopsis that indicates that Cars will not really revolve around racing (though it seems pretty obvious there will be some racing).
MILD SPOILER ALERT - here is the synopsis they gave:
"The movie centers on speed-obsessed race car Lightning McQueen, who gets lost on his way to the track. He lands in Radiator Springs, a downtrodden town off fabled Route 66 that has been bypassed by the interstate. There, he learns about what really matters from the cars of the 1950s and '60s."
-andrew
Small nitpick. Frozone movement was a dead ringer for speed skating, not skiing. I'd be willing to bet the animators studied speed skaters to get his movements down. Even his costume was a colorful version of the type worn by speed skaters.