Film # 057 – The Incredibles (2004)
Despite the love I felt at the time for Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc., I was not at all enthused by the early previews that I saw for The Incredibles. Much of that early ad campaign (including the first teaser trailer) did not look promising, focusing on the comedy of a fat super-hero. Look at this and this to get some idea of what I’m talking about. They couldn’t have done a worse job of selling this movie to me. In fact, I was so put off by the campaign that I completely missed seeing The Incredibles in the theater. I finally got a look at what the film actually was while standing around in K-Mart one day when it was playing on the displays. I was amazed to learn that not only was this film not a “fat super-hero” comedy (although there is some of that), it is Pixar’s most serious film to date and one of the best super-hero films ever made, despite not being based on any previously existing characters.
The Incredibles stands out in the Pixar canon for a number of reasons. It’s the first to be directed by a person who joined the company post-Toy Story (Brad Bird, brought in to “shake things up”). It’s the first Pixar film to focus primarily on humans, instead of relegating them to the background and support. And lastly, it is the first and only Pixar film to date (and one of the few animated features) to carry a single name on the screenplay, again Brad Bird.
The fact that Bird is the writer/director makes The Incredibles a much more personal film than most animated features. Of course, that kind of approach can work against a filmmaker. I think it made Bird’s previous effort, The Iron Giant, a big mess. But here it works, because the big picture that Bird attempts to paint works. Basically, the theme of The Incredibles is that one must always do the very best one can with the gifts you are given. Not to define your life on what others think or do. Bird is able to use the double-edged sword of super-heroes vs. society and the family dynamic to tackle these issues from various angles. It is this multi-layered approach that provides The Incredibles with its astounding depth.
First, it is clear that Bird has a strong understanding of the nature of the super-hero genre. His characters ring true, even when they are out of uniform and in their day-to-day lives. All too often when the private lives of super-heroes are tackled they are shown to either be far too dramatic or far too mundane to be believeable. But the Parr family acts and sounds like any other family, with their disgreements, big and little. Only the details of what they argue over are slightly different. In uniform, of course, they are just as clearly defined as any traditional hero. Mr. Incredible aka Bob Parr (Craig T. Nelson) is the big, burley strongman. Elastigirl aka Mrs. Incredible* aka Helen Parr (Holly Hunter) is a stretchy heroine in the vein of Mr. Fantastic or The Elongated Man. Daughter Violet (Sarah Vowell) can turn invisible and project force fields. (It’s these last two that draw the strong comparisons to the Fantastic Four.) Son Dash (Spencer Fox) is, naturally, a super-speedster. Bob’s best friend Lucius aka Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) projects cold and ice. And there’s super-villains, plenty of other heroes (if mostly in flashback) and wannabe sidekicks thrown into the mix. It’s a fully populated comic book-style world as rich as any seen in the comics.
On the domestic side, the Parr family is shown quite realistically, as I mentioned. The strains that are appearing in Bob and Helen’s marriage aren’t caused by supernatural forces or anything nonsensical like that. They are the typical problems that arise when a marriage reaches that stage where the partners begin to question the choices they have made in life. Bob’s mid-life crisis isn’t comedic because it feels so natural. Giving up his career has put a strain on him that no amount of love and understanding from his wife can repair. And Helen’s inability to cure him of his problems or to really understand why it bothers him so much only feuls the issue. These are natural reactions from both parties that simply feel true, making the Parrs more human than, say, the problems of the Man of Steel in Superman II. (After all, how many relationships really falter because one of the members is the sole survivor of a doomed planet?)
It certainly helps that the film is perfectly cast. While I would never have thought of Craig T. Nelson as a super-hero**, he is the ideal choice for the troubled Bob Parr. It’s as Bob that Nelson is at his most natural, but he is just as effective in hero mode. I can’t say enough good things about Holly Hunter as Helen. *** She’s alternatively loving, stern, jealous, protective, etc. She’s the full range. Helen is perhaps even more complex a character than Bob, who defines himself by his super-heroing. She sin’t really sure of her place in the world for most of the film (although she thinks she is). Hunter is able to capture all the nuances of this complexity without turning the character into a walking shopping list of emotions. The rest of the characters are more straightforward, but no less well cast. Samuel Jackson brings a lot of humor to Frozone, Jason Lee proves a solid villain as Syndrome and Elizabeth Peña brings a sultry vulnerability to the role of Syndrome’s right-hand woman, Mirage. Sarah Vowell, a writer and monologist who had never really acted before being approached to do violet, is able to project Violet’s awkwardness, yet allows her inner strength to always bubble below the surface. And it should be noted that outrageous and over-the-top though it is, director Bird’s turn as designer-to-the-heroes Edna Mode is a highlight of the film. (Used just enough so as not to get annoying.)
Visually, The Incredibles does a lot of things that had not been done on such a scale before. Things like explosions and high-speed action sequences had not been tackled before by any studio. Usually, when action had been called for in a CGI film (such as, say, Shrek’s escape from the dragon), it ended up looking like a high-definition video game, not a movie. Where The Incredibles shines visually is in how the camera moves like a real camera would for a live action film. The one place where the visuals fail is in the background characters. As is noted on the DVD, the budget only allowed for the animators to have one generic model for men and one for women, other than the main characters. (Villain Bomb Voyage, for instance, is simply Frozone’s model stretched and re-colored.) The end result is that even with different head and body shapes, the background characters end up being a sea of same-looking people, with nothing to denote any kind of individuality. When individuality is attempted, such as the teacher Dash humiliates, they often go too far, making the figue a characature that lessens the reality of the situation. But that’s just quibbling and not a serious detriment to the enjoyment of the film.
I guess if I had one major complaint about The Incredibles, it’s not something about the film itself, but its reception. I was irritated that many critics praised the film for its more “mature” approach, as if that was somehow progress over Pixar’s previous films. I refute the notion that “mature” equals “better”. I think that it’s this kind of close-minded attitude towards more family-friendly films that hurt Pixar’s next film Cars. I actually read reviews that outright stated that Cars was a step backwards for the studio because it wasn’t as “mature” as The Incredibles. It’s as if these critics want films to be made for them and them alone, not caring that most people, although happy to see a mature, deep film, don’t want every film to be like that. There’s got to be some balance. The Incredibles showed that Pixar can make just about every kind of film if they want to. Thankfully, they will most likely continue to make every kind of film, not just one.
* There is an ongoing debate about what her super-hero name should be post-film. Does she return to her pre-marriage name of Elastigirl or does she go by Mrs. Incredible? Who knows? To me, she’s just Helen.
**A clear pointer to why I’m not an Academy Award winning director.
***Friends and family have already indicated that my feeling that Helen is the perfect woman may be unhealthy. Hah!