Good movie...TERRIBLE messages

Rating: 3/10 (2 June 2005)

Movies don't just entertain -- they MEAN. They have messages. They instruct, influence, and evoke.
So what is the meaning of _The_Incredibles_? Simple: You Don't Count.
I am, perhaps, unusual in that I scrutinize every movie, TV show, newspaper story and advertisement for its deeper message -- but I think that practice is a lot more common when we consider media aimed at children, as this movie, with its toy tie-ins and McDonalds-driven marketing, most certainly is. So when friends suggested that Pixar had hit another one out of the park with _The_Incredibles_, I naturally screened it for my kid, thinking this would be a beauty.
Imagine my shock and dismay to find that, underneath the comic-book overtones, this is not a movie for kids at all. Not only is the violence fast, furious, and rampant, it's deadly...as the characters themselves point out, Saturday Morning Cartoons offer kids an unrealistic belief that deadly violence is somehow fun. Well OK, I can get behind that message, but it's going to be tricky explaining to my six-year-old that when he sees a plane full of bad-guys blow up as it rips through a tree, that this isn't just metaphorical -- that guy is DEAD.
But I got more and more disturbed when I saw that the majority of the violence in this movie wasn't being perpetrated by the bad guys at all -- it's mostly coming from our "heroes," The Incredible family themselves. Mr. I. uproots trees, tosses bombs, knocks down buildings, and punches mere mortal villains with fists which we've seen lift train cars. And then, in a fit of pique, in an early establishing scene, Mr. Incredible punches his boss. Who is *NOT* a villain. He's an unarmed civilian, which Mr. Incredible outweighs by about 200 pounds. He punches this guy through several walls, and later views of this poor guy in the hospital make it clear that he's broken a lot of bones.
This is our HERO???? And then there's the main message of the film: you don't count. You see you, me, all us non-super-heroes, we aren't "special," like the Incredibles. And no, the idea that everyone has some special quality, that everyone has unique skills or traits, that's disdained by our hero as a "celebration of mediocrity" -- his normal job, like the one you and I have, you see that's not good enough for the special people. No, the special people should be given the opportunity to requisition government aircraft, to own supercars they haven't paid for, to throw civilians through walls without any consequence if they act annoying. In fact, the guy who suggests that everyone *could* be special or super, if given the chance, is the VILLAIN of the movie! So there goes about 2,000 years worth of morality, right down the drain. According to this movie, might makes right, and anyone who thinks otherwise deserves to be stomped into the pavement. Jesus wept.