Pixar just can’t make bad movies!

What? An animated flick? Who the hell do I think I am? wait…I think I’m a movie reviewer dude, and I think I know who I am. Right. Moving on. Here’s a bit of a break from the norm, with a review of the movie The Incredibles. A creation of Disney in conjunction with Pixar, this box office smash hit cartoon dealie was more than entertaining. It was just flat out fun. And anyone who has read my previous articles knows that I don’t really review a movie based on its “fun” factor. But after seeing this flick, I was persuaded that movies really can be fun. It stars such people as my favorite actor of all time Jason Lee as the bad guy and Samuel L. Jackson (what movie isn’t this guy in?) as a kind of sidekick. Unfortunately, I didn’t really recognize the other actors and actresses, but more on that later. This movie is exceptionally well done and is more a work of art than a movie.

Plot

The movie follows the lives of a family of underground superheroes after a series of lawsuits forces the government to conceal the identities and stop the super activity of superheroes. This particular family’s father, Bob Parr (Mr. Incredible) played by Craig T. Nelson longs for the “glory days” when he could save lives and be loved and cherished by the whole nation. After losing his job at an insurance company, Mr. Incredible gladly takes on a job for big bucks on a remote island where he can once again use his powers. Unbeknownst to him, however, he is working for someone whose sole purpose is to kill all supers and become a super hero himself. After “killing” Mr. Incredible, Syndrome played by Jason Lee, sends a gigantic robot to the city and attempts to disable it. After realizing he is unable to become the hero he wants to be, Syndrome is foiled by his own robot, which is now destroying the whole city. It is then up to the Incredibles (that’s the whole family, not just Mr. Incredible) to vanquish the evil. And so on. I won’t delve in any more, because I don’t want to ruin the ending.

Visual

All CGI, all the time. But it really works. I know I’ve left a few animated movies thinking how crappy the graphics seemed, but this flick pulled it all off very well. Now, I’m sure you’ve all seem some Pixar movie, so I’m sure you know the quality of graphics they produce. But this movie even exceeds all previous work. It’s not quite perfectly lifelike, but it’s close enough to make you believe it could be real. Plus, a lot the visuals took on a very “James Bond” kind of feel that I found quite exhilarating. I really can’t stress enough the uniqueness of these visuals, I actually left the theater wanting more. I wanted to see more of the movie, I wanted more James Bond bad guy secret hideouts and beautiful CGI.

Audio

A great theme song, and even better special effect sounds. I found myself humming the theme song for the whole day afterward, and occasionally it gets stuck in my head still. The song fit the movie perfectly, and almost helped the believability of the flick. It actually helped it seem like a Superman meets James Bond movie, but with better acting, plot, sound effects, and originality.

Acting

Yeah, I know it’s animated, and that there really isn’t a whole lot of acting required with voicing-over, but I was pleasantly surprised with the acting quality here. Every part of each voice-over is incredibly (pun intended) believable. You could almost catch yourself thinking the characters are real thanks to this. It really helped make the whole movie seem more like a live action movie than an animated flick. As for the acting quality of the actors I had never heard of? I could almost say that they are better than even the ones I have heard of. Truly impressive.

Summary

I would strongly recommend this movie to any person of all ages. From that six year old obnoxious cousin you have to baby-sit for the weekend while her parents are in Vegas, to the ninety year old that you sit with on Thursday mornings to make him feel loved again. But it also works for everything in between. This is the kind of movie that my parents would watch and enjoy (for those who don’t know, I help them to watch movies that won’t make them mad…and that’s pretty damn tough to do). So as the first review of an aminated movie, I’m proud to rate this one exceptionally high. If you haven’t seen this one yet, you should go do that. Just spend the buck or two to rent it. You’ll like it, I promise. Yes, do my bidding, excellent. Right, anyway. 5 out of 5