Pixar Playlist #6 - The Incredibles

Ladies and Gentlemen, whether you like it or not, the Pixar Playlist

The Incredibles represented a unique challenge for Pixar, as the first film that had leads that were all human, and an entirely human set of background characters, requiring new techniques for animating clothing, muscle and hair but this film presented unique challenges in animating fire, water, air, steam, explosives and dust. It had quadruple the number of the locations of other Pixar films and at the time had the longest run-time. Topping all that off, the writer and director of this film, Brad Bird was pretty new to the CGI game. His previous film was The Iron Giant, which did utilise CG, but not to this extent.

With all that in mind, it’s amazing this film ended on a $92m budget, $2m less than the much less innovative and shorter Finding Nemo. The film went onto making $633m at the box office and continues Pixar’s streak of critical hits with a 97% Rotten Tomatoes rating. But where does it rank on the Pixar Playlist, let's take a look

A difficult wedding day for our titular hero, the strong Mr Incredible sees the concept of superheroes shut down by the government amid a growing series of lawsuits. Mr Incredible and his now wife Elastigirl are forced to settle down in suburbia using their secret identities of Bob and Helen Parr. They have 3 children, the shy Violet who has invisibility and force-field powers, the speedy troublemaker Dash and a baby named Jack Jack whose powers are as yet undefined.

Bob seeks to help people whilst a job making that increasingly difficult for him, so when an opportunity to do actual hero work comes along, he all-too quickly snaps at the chance. But…

  

Former wannabe sidekick, now calling himself Syndrome has been using his technological prowess to kill other heroes and build a machine only he can defeat. Will his family be able to rescue Bob and save the world in time?

First off, I love that fact that it’s a series of lawsuits that shuts superheroes down, it’s just hilariously mundane, which basically describes the entire first third of this movie as we’re introduced to the Parr family and set things up for what’s to come. I find it interesting one of the first things we get from Mr Incredible is him stopping his pursuit of a robber to save a cat from a tree, and intercepting said robber entirely by circumstance.

The core concept of the Incredibles is that of family, but the story is told from the perspective of Mr Incredible, who seems to be going through a sorta mid-life crisis. They do a good job of making his frustrations sympathetic so some of his less moral actions, like nearly strangling his boss and lying to his wife are at least somewhat less problematic. Craig T Nelson’s voice acting is also a help here as he perfectly portrays a character who isn’t satisfied with his life but still loves his family and would do anything for them.

Dash and Violet are fairly stereotypical kids and it’s kinda neat how their powers reflect that. Violet has a minor subplot about having a crush on a boy and it’s kinda glanced over but it’s more just a demonstration of her confidence issues that resolving the subplot proves her growth over the course of the film. Dash’s running sequence looks amazing. Spencer Fox and Sarah Vowell do fine jobs providing the voices for these two.

Helen is clearly more satisfied with her life than Bob is, she’s got the responsibility for her 3 children and often finds herself too busy to reminisce. Her brief suspicion that Bob is cheating on her is interesting as infidelity is not something you’d expect in a kid’s movie but I’m kinda glad it’s glanced over as comedic misunderstandings like this tend to bring plots to a screeching halt.

When she’s thrown into the action though, she’s incredibly badass, saving her children from an exploding plane and taking out guards as doors trap half her body at every turn. Her powers make her very versatile and a great showcase for the leaps forward they made with their animation this time around. Holly Hunter provides another solid performance to sell the role.

Syndrome, played by father of chipmunks, Jason Lee, is an extremely hateable villain. Whilst his motivations are somewhat understandable, the folks at Pixar never wanted you to sympathise with him. As a sidekick, he was annoying and his presence set off a chain of events that was partially responsible for the lawsuits. As Syndrome, he’s murdered his way through dozens of heroes to stage an attack on the city.

Mirage is somewhat of an enigma to me, she knew her boss was crazy, right? She says she’s attracted to power but what kind of answer is that? She clearly doesn’t agree with all the killing and wasn’t paid enough to not betray Syndrome by the end so… Why was she working for him?

Of course, the comedic highlight of the movie is Edna ‘E’ Mode, voiced by Brad Bird himself. She’s a fashion designer whose self-confidence makes her more than a match for even the toughest of super heroes. She’s sassy and ever word that comes out of her mouth is hilarious, Brad Bird had pitch-perfect comic delivery.

When it comes to animation as I said in the opening, they had a lot working against them but they pulled it off. The animation is sleek and fluid, Mr Incredible’s muscles look like they’re working, and the physics engines give the objects he’s lifting weight. Elastigirl’s stretching looks fantastic, the caricature style design gives the project a unique look without going to far from the human concept. The water effects are particularly impressive. As are the ice effects used by Frozone (voiced by Samuel L Jackson) The only drawback I noticed watching was the buildings in the opening which looked particularly early-stage CG. Still, this was 2004 and given all the challenges they had to work with this is a minor detail.

The Incredibles was a challenging project that required a lot of hard work from everyone involved in production but man did that pay off as we’re treating to Pixar’s best movie to date, with a great and more complex story, hilarious comedy and sublime action.

#1 The Incredibles

#2 Finding Nemo

#3 Toy Story 2

#4 Toy Story

#5 Monsters Inc

#6 A Bug’s Life