Terrific popcorn muncher

Rating: 8/10 (12 November 2004)

As intellectually sweeping and philosophically cavernous as a tin thimble, THE INCREDIBLES remains the best film thus far (the latest in an astonishing series of continuous hits) to issue from the Pixar group (Disney distributed). This studio's founders are former Disney people. Whatever, they really know how to win and win again, something that Disney itself has forgotten how to do.
The 3-D, CGI animated film is a fast moving trans-genre (action-adventure, comedy/parody) picture that all can enjoy at the visceral level. If fun is your thing this one is for you. It's clever, witty, brightly written and directed by Brad Bird whose credentials include The Iron Giant (1999).
The only downside for me was the use of very well known live-action voices for the leads, whose real life images kept intruding and competing with the graphically rendered characters. As I said in previous comments on animated films, this is a personal irritant. For some it might not even be an issue.
However, I fail to understand the need for 'known' voices.
Not in the farthest reaches of my imagination would I suspect that Holly Hunter's voice, for example; though stylized, very rich and easy to discern, was a box office draw for this product. When looking at the rendered character I kept wanting to see Holly Hunter. This is as disturbing as watching a badly lip-synced foreign film. Again, it's the reason that Walt Disney chose the unknown Adriana Caselotti for the voice of Snow White (1937) as opposed to some giant box office voice of the period.
It might be noted here that Disney's early films all had intellectual levels of meaning as well as the entertainment values. Both today's Disney and Pixar seem not to care about this. Yet, depth is what gives a film legs and renders it a true classic. At the bottom line, nevertheless: The Incredibles is highly recommended for the sheer, if easily forgettable, fun of it.