Incredibles, The [26]

What a ride! Pixar wins again. Disney is going to find the company that it helped boost is its biggest competitor. In this Brad Bird directed movie, Bob Paar is a superhero who is forced to become an everyman. Dull drudgery is bad enough when you have never known different. But when you have gone from being Mr. Incredible to Bob Paar, insurance adjuster, life loses all meaning. Gilbert Huph (voiced by Wallace Shawn) is Bob's Napoleon sized boss. Gilbert finally gets his comeuppance in a most satisfying way. (Why couldn't Bill Lumberg get ousted in a similar manner in Office Space?)

Before "supers" were banished and forced into hiding, Bob also ran afoul of Buddy Pine, a young boy that hero worships Mr. Incredible. You just know that Buddy will reappear. And of course, he does as Syndrome.

Syndrome is the Ultra villain's ultra villain. He has it all. He has a super beefed-up volcanic island hideaway, al la Blofeld in "You Only Live Twice". He has super powers in the form of energy fields that can even immobilize super beings. He has a hot cartoon plantinum blonde girlfriend. He has legions of terror. He has an indestructible robot. His downfall is forshadowed, if you have ever read "What I will do if I ever become an evil overlord".

The Paar family and the rest of the "supers" are an anthropological topic in themselves. The supers are gifted with extraordinary abilities. How they got them appears to be genetic. But, superpowers seem to be all different. I guess this because the Paar children manifest different powers than their parents. Also none of the other "supers" seem to have identical powers. Every super appears to have one specific and unique power. Jack Jack Paar, the infant son, seems to be the one exception. He can transform into a fire being. He can polymorph into a demonic creature. He can levitate. He can dematerialize and pass through solid objects. He has laser beam eyes. I believe that Jack Jack is destined to be the greatest super yet.

The Paars have been married for a while as evidenced by their byplay and banter. I laughed out loud as they hurtled towards downtown Metroville and argued about which exit to take.

The music was great. I felt the whole time that it was a tribute to the James Bond movie music from the 60's. When Mr. Incredible is sneaking up to the Syndrome hideout, the music reminded me of "Bond Back in Action" (the music for the pre-credits sequence for the movie Goldfinger) by John Barry. Michael Giacchino, composer of the hit TV shows "Alias" and "Lost." This is his very first score for a feature film. The score was performed live, with all the musicians together in the studio and playing at the same time into three microphones.

Brad Bird had this to say about the music: "We [John Barry and I] worked on it [the score] for a little while, and I’m a huge fan of John Barry. But I kind of wanted him to go back to a style that he used in the past, and use that as kind of a starting place. I think he kind of felt like he’d already done that. So we’re still in touch with him, and he’s going to see the movie in New York. He was all right with us trying to find someone who could be, uh... perky and fresh about going backwards because John certainly had already done a lot of that style."

Holly Hunter has a great voice. I would like to hear her do more voiceover work. Craig T. Nelson was great as Bob Paar. I never figured him for a voice actor. Although I liked him in the Coach TV series. Samuel Jackson re-enacts one of his great scenes as he slowly reaches for a cup of water while a cop points a loaded gun at him. John Ratzenberger gets another Pixar voice credit as "The Underminer".

I look forward to Brad's next movie "Ray Gunn" which I take to be an animated detective movie in the vein of Peter Gunn. {BB}

See Expectation

Movie Notes:
Syndrome breaks a number of Evil Overlord rules, which eventually lead to his downfall.


1. My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear Plexiglas visors, not face-concealing ones.
4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
6. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.
10. I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum -- a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.
13. All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.
19. Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.
20. I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman footsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.
24. No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot.
35. I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell. If they are important prisoners, I will keep the only key to the cell door on my person instead of handing out copies to every bottom-rung guard in the prison.
39. I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.
51. I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.
55. My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.
57. If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.
61. I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.
69. When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.
74. I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.
89. I will not design my Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.

Added: June 27th 2005
Reviewer: BB
29 Point Scale Score:    [26]

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