Review- The Incredibles

  It's always a fun gag to humanize super heroes because of the irony.  Heroes with mighty powers are created to do the things we cannot do in real life.  Faster than a speeding bullet and so on..  The first half of The Incredibles gives us a rather humorous set-up- the domestication of the super hero.

  Mr. Incredible is a defeated man.  He has not lost to any arch-rival villain, but rather he has been beaten down by life in the real world.  There are just too many lawsuits waiting to happen when you use your super-human strength to repeatedly save the day.  Incredible has been forced to settle down to a boring life of marriage and insurance claims.  The only kicks he gets are from reliving the good old days as a vigilante who hides from his wife in the car, listening to the police scanner.

  Business does eventually pick up again when Mr. Incredible is contacted by a secret agency that has need for his unique abilities.  This is the set-up for the second half of the movie and is unfortunately the point where things get bogged down.  A classic case of the need for a plot interfering with an ingenius premise.  Of course we know that Mr. Incredible and his equally super wife, Elastigirl, will officially return to action, but in doing so, all oppurtunities for satire become lost. 

  The movie never loses its sense of fun, just its sense of humor.  The only time I remember laughing in the second half is when Elastigirl fights her way out of a compromising situation as only she can.  All action, no laughs is not what I have come to expect from Pixar.  That, coupled with my four year old's need to look away periodically, reminded me that Pixar is trying to break away from Disney.  They definitely do it here with children in danger and even a reference to a drinking game.  This is definitely not Toy Story.  (The Incredibles is rated PG, not G like all previous Pixar gems.)

  The computer graphics are top notch as usual- it's a credit to Pixar that they have set such a standard that it is almost not worth mentioning how great they are.  The super suits really glisten and there is a scene in the ocean where the characters almost look real.

  I wanted to and was ready to love this movie but I just couldn't.  The two halves are such stark contrasts.  I wish they could have run the spoof out for ninety minutes.  Fun, but not fun enough.  

  2.5 stars