THE INCREDIBLES
YOUR AUGUST 2006 UMC RESULTS ARE IN!
Tagline: Save the Day
The Preshow Entertainment was the long awaited DVD release (though not as long as F TROOP, I suppose) of ANIMANIACS (a/k/a STEVEN SPIELBERG PRESENTS EGOMANIAC). If you've come to RMC, you'll know it's no secret that Dawn is a huge fan. And it also seemed like a nice pairing to THE INCREDIBLES. So, for an hour we watched the reckless antics of the Warner Brothers (Yakko and Wakko) and the Warner Sister (Dot) as they turn anyone in their path into an instant Edgar Kennedy.
Regarding the evening's feature presentation- This may be one of those cases of something being built up only to get knocked down. No fewer than 5 people today told me how great THE INCREDIBLES is, and how much they loved it, and how much I will love it. So I'm here to say, wrong, wrong, and wrong. I didn't love it. I barely liked it. But that's not to say the film didn't have moments of genius.
When super heroes are banned from Metroville due to numerous lawsuits against them, Mr. Incredible, his wife Elastigirl, and kids Violet, Dash, and infant Jack-Jack are relegated into domesticity. Years go by, and Bob (Mr. I's civilian self), who has let himself go, finds himself saturated in ennui in the daily grind of cubicle life. An insurance man with a heart, he's called on the carpet by his homunculus Stephen King-looking boss for not doing his job well (he refers clients to other places, for better deals).
But his super hero blood boils when he can't save a mugging victim, and he snaps, revealing himself. He's soon recruited to help destroy a Bond-ish villain in a Bond-ish YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE volcano lair to Bond-ish musical arrangements. The plot actually gets better from here on in, though I thought the fight scenes just kept coming and coming.
But it's the subtext, metaphors and allegories of THE INCREDIBLES that are the real super powers in this movie. It's the kids discovering who they really are, and that it's okay to be different. It's the male ego, as bloated as Mr. Incredible's chest, who wants to do things on his own (illustrated overtly when driving an RV to stop the villain). It's things we can identify with as humans. As THE GODFATHER and THE SOPRANOS are often cited as being stories about family, so is THE INCREDIBLES.
Writer/Director Brad Bird uses 60s spy films as a backdrop much the same way he framed THE IRON GIANT in the 50s comic book-centric imagery, but to less rewarding results. I wish the movie had a lot more heart and less clanking, explosions, bullets, and endless battles with the nearly indestructible and excessively noisy Omnidroid.
He also fills the screen with sharp characters, like Edna Mode, the hero wardrobe lady voiced by Bird himself, and most certainly "patterned" after Edith Head.
THE INCREDIBLES, long at 2 hours, won Best Animated feature Film of the Year(2005), and everyone in the world loves it, which shows you just how little I know. Again, I'm not calling it a bad movie. But I wanted really spectacular, or at best, really great. Then again, calling a movie THE JUST OKAYS is probably not a smart marketing strategy.
Tags: random movie club, the incredibles, animaniacs, pinky and the brain
