Dull, over-the-top, overlong, cynical, pretentious... I'll keep this summary short.

Rating: 1/10 (4 August 2005)

I know it's a common practice to aim straight at the "one star" rating for films you only moderately dislike. But if I could give this movie ZERO stars, I would do so without blinking. This movie is one of the worst things I've ever sat through. It was impossible to even try to care about anything here - story, characters, animation, action, and so the list goes. I admit I was turned-off from the movie right from the start, just because of the hype, the advertising, the merchandising, and all of that. And I also hated Shrek with a passion, but when I rented this DVD, I honestly, sincerely tried to like the movie, approaching it with an unbiased mind. Really, I did. What a disappointment. If I watched the movie already expecting to hate it, my feelings wouldn't be so bitter.
The entire movie is pretty much an insult - a preposterous "family" story involving superheroes (a culture that I *despise*, but hey, I thought this would be awesome, cruel parody on it) and lame, idiotic morals. I'm actually puzzled at what *was* the message here, but in the end, the less I think about it, the better. None of the characters did anything to me. Nothing at all was even remotely funny. But what really got me was the attempt at doing something "adult", "serious" and "meaningful". To me, it was just overreaching. They were trying so hard to make a *statement* with that movie, they failed to make it entertaining and rewarding. Besides, why was the movie advertised for kids, anyway? This movie had *nothing* at all to do with kids. To me, it isn't very honest to do "serious", "adult" animation and advertise it as a kids movie just to earn easy money. Not honest at all.
The attitude of the movie bugged me. It seemed to be building up towards something important, something truly earth-shattering. And as it approached the end, it just became more and more ridiculous and insulting - the scene showing soldiers making a "drinking game" with the live footage on TV, culminating with Mr. Incredible "heroically" beating them to a pulp (away from the camera, of course! Gotta be P.C.!), was the moment when I was convinced I should stop watching. But I didn't, and it just got worse. The movie climaxed with the baby, Jack-Jack, showing his superpowers as if nobody saw that coming (come on, did the writers think I was THAT dumb?), and humiliating the villain with all sorts of glories. And like that wasn't enough, the writers KILL the villain, just to make us go "wow, that's SO bold and unexpected for a family movie!" The ending arrives, and happens exactly the way I predicted it to go. Well, not true... I didn't think the movie would sink SO LOW to the point of making another moralistic climax with Dash purposefully finishing the race on second place.
I am convinced. The more gushing, brainless raves a movie gets, the worse it is. That is the only logical explanation I can come up with for garbage like this to be passed off as some revolutionary masterpiece. Not even the animation was noteworthy - it was so polished, so squeaky-clean, so show-offy and state-of-the-art that it was just plain boring to look at. Instead of trying to entertain us, Pixar just tried to show off. And since people are so easily impressed by such arrogance, I guess they can get away with it. But in a few years, that stuff will be horribly dated - kind of like The Matrix. You know such love for technology has a price. Please, if you want to watch a movie, go watch a movie made for human beings. Leave "The Incredibles" for the robots and the androids when they take over the human race - it will be surefire MST3K material.