A bewildering combination of brilliance and despondent themes

Rating: 7/10 (18 June 2007)

I want to congratulate director Brad Bird on one of the most original animated opening sequences I've seen. From the very start of the film, the viewer is all ready to submerge into a film that takes animation and "children's entertainment" to a whole new level, and this level isn't just pretentious gibber concocted to look revolutionary. This is the real thing. And it's almost a superb film. But I must take strong, even drastic conflict with the underlying themes that the film presents. What makes the "The Incredibles" both excellent and reprehensible is Bird's writing that unfortunately overlooks and neglects aspects in it's presentation. At least I hope so. The film leaps back and forth from a respectable animated film into something dark and ugly, and, amongst such, paints a gloss over it and claims accessibility to children. It is such a fact that I pray is never repeated.
Bird's writing flounders in the very fact that it is trying to promote a message, and not a silly one. While doing so in the context of a superhero film, the film meanders back and forth from being real and fantastical. Essentially, the film can't decide what it wants to be. Does it want to pay homage to classic comics where elements of our reality are taken for granted or does it want to portray a strange new world where supers are taken out of context and applied a different role in the society? That is, the film begs to be taken as some kind or allegory, at the time maintaining, even emphasizing it's seriousness. The film contains fantastic voice work from the whole cast involved, and toward the middle of the film there are some impressively convincing moments of drama and suspense. What is further done with this is utterly disappointing. The film sporadically morphs back into a comic book where the lives of everyone except our heroes are meaningless, as is the physical and emotional pain of these characters. Some situations that involve very serious acts perpetuated by the protagonists are never resolved and are thusly deemed as acceptable. This is evident from the very start of the film when our hero, who's personality is much more like the appearances of the characters in "Monster's Inc", derides the talent of the soon-to be powerful villain as a youngster and never cares to say anything about it until years later, when the tables are turned. The film's message is to point out that "no, we aren't all special", and I can live with that to a certain degree because it's true for the most part. But one wonders if these certain facts are necessary for smaller children to digest? Perhaps this film isn't for them at all, and that's fine. What do I as an older person think? I think these themes scream some pretty reprehensible notions, and it killed any entertaining factor that "The Incredibles" had, as well as making me dislike the characters. Aside from our hero's treatment of Buddy and his hardly fairly matched boss in the beginning, when you view what occurred in terms of the film's overall theme it fails to mesh into anything we'd think as admirable if you're the average caring person. Buddy's child-like enthusiasm for his talent is not a bad thing, but it is treated as such. One talent is favored over the other, and I'm not sure why. Justifably, Buddy seeks out to be like his ex-hero and is killed for it. Wait, I'm completely aware of Buddy, who's later turned into Syndrome, is a serial killer. But what can we say about the depiction of a struggling person desperate to be labeled what is considered "special" as a vicious murderer? Something just isn't right here. It isn't helped by the very fact that virtually every non-super is either looney or negative in nature.
There are further questionable sequences in the film, including the aforementioned violence occurring toward the end, that even while in self-defense, it is not believable when compared to the same intensity of other scenes involving the protagonists in mortal danger. I certainly do demand that films, despite the lowered standards for family entertainment, be further observed beyond their entertainment value or admittedly very good direction. Still, the film is also to be commended for it's artistic landscape, a somewhat 1950's universe laden with modernist design. A true rarity animation for adults is, and this so disappointingly has to offend in an unusual and problematic way.