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.

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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.

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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.