I’ve gotta stop starting reviews with “I’ve gotta admit …” lol … but I’ve gotta admit I didn’t know much about this comic book (I know even less about the forthcoming Iron Man, that should be fun …) and I was pleasantly surprised by where the story went here, regarding Elektra thinking Daredevil killed her father, etc. That said, the whole thing is smoothed over (well … resolved, cut short, however you wanna put it the conflict doesn’t last is what I’m saying lol) a little too quick for my liking – the idea of the alter-ego’s love interest being the superhero’s enemy is fascinating – of course it’s done even better in Batman Returns with Catwoman, but even then I think there’s room for expansion (btw, like I said I’m really not big on comicbooks – if I’ve just detailed an archetype that’s found in hundreds of the things then forgive me lol).

Anyway … it’s dumb but it’s slick, the cast (outside of Garner and Affleck, at least) is impressive (you’ve gotta love the Kevin Smith cameo), and best of all it’s short. The visual effects are particularly stunning, I think there are some digital actors in here that are way more convincing than those in the same year’s Matrix sequels, and I love the rain/seeing thing. It’s just about enough to forgive the corny repetition of “Stay with me …” and the even cornier use of Evanescence on the soundtrack, lol. The ending really took me by pleasant surprise too.

“Saaaay … would you like a chocolate covered pretzel? They’re a little melty, but boy are they exquisite.”

Another I thought I’d reviewed more recently than ‘04 The main thing I’d forgotten about this movie is Claire Forlani and Shannon Doherty. Throw in the short Joey Lauren Adams appearance and I think you’ve got at least the sexiest Kevin Smith movie if not the funniest. I didn’t exactly bring the house down on this viewing like the one below but there are tons of moments that still make me laugh out loud more than a lot of Smith’s output, which more often than not I like more for the emotional content than the humour. This one on the contrary is pretty much all about the funny – the ending is stirring in that cheesy Eighties way that it’s going for, but it’s not the deeper territory that Smith has, I don’t care what anyone else says, touched in his other movies. I still haven’t seen Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back since the review below – I seem to be avoiding it – I really don’t think it’s as consistently on the nose as this one, though. The Jay and Bob storyline here alone is worth seeing the movie for, Kevin Smith doing the cartoon acting, playing to the camera completely, arguably better than he’s done anywhere else. It’s often spoken of as a somehow lesser work of Smith’s but I think it might just be the most essential companion to any given one of the others.

June 10th, 2004:

I must’ve been numb the last time I saw this movie which is why I’m filing this under “Virgin Viewing,” because I damn near died laughing the night I watched it this time.

I’ll probably eat these words the next time I see Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back because I’ll likely love that one on a second viewing just as much – but Mallrats is as funny as J&SB should have been.

Does it have a point, a story even? I could hardly tell you. But you have Silent Bob continuously busting in on Joey Lauren Adams trying to change, the poor fat guy trying to see the stereo image, “Oooh, a sailboat!” (“There is no Easter bunny!!”), Jay and Silent Bob beating up the Easter bunny, and plenty more.

Put it this way – if movies like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Exorcist can be described as, “an assault of horrors,” then Mallrats is an assault of comedy.

It’s really really hard for me to review my passionate favourites. I sat down to watch this today not knowing if I’d be in the mood for it, but within minutes – even before Christina Ricci appeared onscreen – I was back 10 years ago.

It’s so hard to believe how old this movie is – the effects still stand up completely. For me they’re among the very best in movie history. The ghosts aren’t marvels of 3-dimensional modelling, but on this viewing I realised for the first time what exactly is so good about the visual effects on this movie – it’s all in the lighting. In every scene, the ghosts blend in so perfectly. There’s simply no doubting that they are in the scene with the humans, they’re as much characters as anyone else. Ironically, the only time this illusion slips is when the ghosts are in a frame of their own, the editor cutting back and forth to a human jerking their head around “following” the ghosts’ motions.

My favourite thing about this movie is the score by James Horner. You can say what you like about its obviously being ripped off from Danny Elfman’s Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands scores (it’s almost too clear that these were probably used as a temp score at times), but somehow, for me at least, it ultimately stands as a work on its own. The piano theme alone, Casper’s Lullaby, which is one of the few parts you really can’t attribute to Elfman, is worth an Oscar. When coupled with the image of a lonely young girl passing her hand through that of a lonely ghost, it makes for me one of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever seen on film.

I’m always surprised by the sheer number of sad scenes in this movie. I always think I’m going to come to it and find Carrigan and Dibs (Eric Idle and Cathy Moriarty – I have to admit, even they are brilliant in flashes as pure comic relief, you couldn’t ask for better actors in a movie like this) all over the place. But from the image of a haunted Bill Pullmann on a tabloid news show, trying to contact his dead wife, to Ricci pulling a photo of her mother out of a box while unpacking (that piano theme making itself heard for the first time), to the aforementioned breakfast “touching” scene, to the scene that really made me break down this time – when Casper asks Kat (Ricci) “Can I keep you?” and kisses her on the cheek, and she mistakes his natural coldness as the window being open – it’s just an incredibly sad movie, right down to Casper basically losing his dream in the end. It always really kind of shocks me how deep the movie goes. I’m convinced it’ll always be close to my heart, this one.

My third review in practically as many months – I must like this movie or something. It just gets better with each viewing. One thing I hadn’t noticed until now on DVD is the movie’s fairly astonishing length of just under 2 hours: very rare in animated movies, and considering the size of this movie, it’s a brave (or insane) bunch of animators, film makers, and technicians that decided to make this thing.

I still can’t take my eyes off Violet, my favourite character. I can just relate to her so much. She alone puts the movie among my all-time favourites. I love how everything about her indicates something about her. Her name, Violet, shrinking violet; her long black hair always there for her to hide behind; her superpowers, invisibility (hiding again) and force field (even more protection from the harsh weird world). I realise that all the characters are built in this way, but it’s Violet that I really connect to. Sarah Vowell’s voice is beautiful, too. I love Violet’s gawkish movements. One thing I always hate about computer animation is that for some reason characters’ motions always appear stilted. Small gestures can work really well, but running and walking and stuff almost never works. Violet is a major exception. I love the expression on her face while trying to make a forcefield around a crashing plane; and again when she’s practicing her skills around a campfire; the way she prods the Omnidroid’s remote manically, not knowing what to do, but knowing that something must be done. That’s Violet in a nutshell, really: she has power and responsibility for the first time in her life, she just doesn’t know what to do with it. She’s simultaneously inquisitive and terrified.

I do find the movie’s message a little weird. I first read, I think, on the IMDb message boards, what I first considered as a case of a person reading way too much into a movie, but you don’t really have to look far into it to see this odd message – Buddy/Syndrome actually begins with noble aspirations, he just wants to be a superhero like his heroes, and he works I’m guessing fairly hard at making pretty stunning inventions, rocket boots etc, to the point where he actually has real power, only nobody ever recognises his talent and encourages it towards good use, not even Mr. Incredible, who tells Syndrome as a boy to just go home. There’s no wonder he rebels. The final message of the movie seems to be very cynical indeed – that some people are just plain “better” than others, and nobody should ever bother trying to break into that clique, because they’ll probably just be mistaken as a villain anyway. It does strike me as a little snobbish.

Is it enough to take away from my enjoyment of the movie? I think it might actually make the movie better. It’s one of those complicated things that makes a movie come over different on every viewing. One time I may see it as a negative, sad interpretation of the world; another I might see it is gleefully cynical and true. In any case, on every viewing there’ll always at least be the animation, music, and production design (the latter two should definitely have both been nominated for Oscars, btw). And of course, my little shameful virtual crush, Violet.

The DVD is the usual expected from Disney/Pixar – you get about an hour of behind-the-scenes stuff, a bunch of deleted scenes at various stages of completion, “Jack-Jack Attack”, a short which reveals exactly what happened with Jack-Jack and Kari, “Boundin’”, the short that played before The Incredibles in cinemas, which comes with a commentary by the director and a little featurette about him, and Easter Eggs on pretty much every screen of Disc 2 (just wait for the Omnidroid icon to appear). I wish there was more artwork on the disc – usually I hate stills galleries, but I would have loved to see more of Violet’s character development, and flyarounds of the sets and characters as they had on the Toy Story discs. Two commentaries and a preview of Cars are on disc one, plus a funny intro where Brad Bird bitches about fullscreen chopping.

–––––––––––––

5th December ‘04:

Maybe it’s because I watched it directly after The Polar Express, which was such a disappointment, or maybe it’s because for the past 2 weeks I’ve been slightly insanely obsessing over Violet and it was a thrill to see her again, maybe it’s because I watched it at 7am after being up all night (maybe these things all roll into one…). I have a feeling this movie’s going to continue to get better with subsequent viewings.

I still feel there’s something missing from The Incredibles, and I noticed even more this time the similarities to movies past: Spy Kids being the most notable, and the sound effects were a little too annoyingly Star Wars-ish for my liking in places.

But this is an astonishing movie in a lot of ways, many I clearly missed the first time around. The whole plane crash sequence made my jaw drop a little on the virgin viewing, but this time I was mesmerised by the number of things being handled onscreen, and finally by the amazing water effects, including the wet hair on all the characters.

I pretty much spent this viewing gawping at the quality of the animation (or grinning at Violet when she was on :-p), so I’ll probably pick up on plenty more story and character things next time.

–––––––

11th November ‘04

How can I possibly call this movie a disappointment? I can’t. Yet it’s no Finding Nemo, and I have to point this out since I read some interview with the director Brad Bird (whose The Iron Giant was a masterpiece, one of my top 100 movies of all time) where he said something along the lines of “if The Incredibles makes less than Finding Nemo it’s the end of Pixar”. And really, The Incredibles does not deserve to make as much as Nemo. I’m really beginning to worry for Pixar – I saw the trailer for Cars moments before seeing The Incredibles and all I can say for that movie is that perhaps it will pave the way for an animated version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Starlight Express ... if it’s a success.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with The Incredibles. It just feels to me like Pixar is resting on its laurels, much like Disney have done too many times before. We knew they were capable of this; usually they surprise us with new capabilities. The story here is simple, the beginnings of a franchise if ever there were one; the character designs are awesome – between Violet’s hair and Mom’s ass I have a year’s worth of visual praise; what’s missing is the great visual gags, and superb characterisation and story of Nemo, Monsters and the Toy Storys.

But though I can’t overpraise it at all, I really can’t dismiss it for the things I loved; its few precious moments still overwhelm most recent movies, and honestly, Mom’s butt is a sight of realism to behold.