The Incredibles

February 6, 2005

Rated: PG Runtime: 105 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Over the weekend I watched Shrek 2 for the first time, then I went to see The Incredibles… which suddenly didn’t seem so incredible.

It’s not that The Incredibles is a bad movie, far from it, it just didn’t live up to its potential in any meaningful way. This is ironic considering one of the moral tidbits you’re supposed to gleam from the movie is that you should strive to be true to yourself, and be your best. The biggest problem with the movie is that it’s a bit slow. OK, it’s more than a bit slow, it takes over 40 minutes for the movie to really do ANYTHING past the opening action sequence. For a movie theater crowded with kids, this was bad, very very bad.

The basic plot of the film is that superheroes were driven out of public life by lawsuits and public outcry over the destruction of property. Obviously the heroes should have just killed the lawyers, but I guess that wouldn’t work so well in a kids movie. Anyway, they’ve now all been given new identities and work in “normal” jobs. Here’s where the movie drags so much as we have to see Bob (Mr. Incredible) work in his crappy cubicle doing insurance adjustment. I mean come on, we got the idea from the trailers, 30 seconds is enough for us, lets get to the action! No no, let’s not rush things.

So, Bob goes on about his daily life until finally he gets a mysterious message and finds himself saving the world once again! Hooray! He doesn’t tell his family about any of this though as he doesn’t think they’d understand. Instead, he keeps it a secret but Helen st art s to notice physical changes in him and eventually gets suspicious.

Speaking of the family, seems they are all superheroes. Helen is actually Elastagirl who you can guess, is rather flexible. Just think about that for a moment. A moment longer. OK, they have 3 kids as well, Dash (super speedy) Violet (can become invisible and create force fields) and Jack Jack, who is just a baby and has no powers. After an hour goes by we finally get to see them all get strut their stuff, and at this point the movie rocks. Heck, if I’d walked into the movie at this point I would have easily given it 5 stars.

The movie does have some good laughs at the expense of other hero movies, and has some genuinely funny situations in it. I do think its worth seeing, but unless you can catch it very late in the evening or early in the day during the week, prepare yourself for an onslaught of kids talking, scream, pushing, shoving, throwing, crying and moving around during the show. Hard to complain too much about this, it is a kids movie after all. Just be prepared and make sure you are in the correct mindset before buying your ticket.

It almost earns a forth star, so very close. But it’s just not quite that good to me. Maybe it’ll earn another star when it hit DVD and I can watch it in peace.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Posted by John | Filed Under 3 Stars, Action, Comedy, Craig T. Nelson, DVD, Holly Hunter, Jason Lee, PG, Samuel L. Jackson