Pixar Does It Again

Rating: 8/10 (6 June 2005)

The Pixar team continues its winning streak with this sharp, snappy, surprisingly adult animated adventure film about a family of former superheroes who cannot fit into "normal" society no matter how hard they try. I'm actually surprised that kids stayed with this film long enough to enjoy the fast-paced non-stop action of its second half; the film's early scenes are a quite funny commentary on bland, middle-class suburban America and the insidiousness of mediocrity that it encourages, obviously aimed more at its adult audience than it is at the kiddy crowd.
My only complaint is that Pixar animation always looks slightly creepy when applied to human characters. The actors and animators do as much as they can to infuse the characters with warmth and to make them engaging, but they can't completely get around the fact that there's a plastic, lifeless quality inherent in digital animation that doesn't exist in its hand-drawn counterpart. But that's not a huge detriment here and doesn't prevent this film from being a lot of fun.
Grade: A