Film review: The Incredibles
Jan 11
I saw The Incredibles over a week ago now, so I’m unforgivably late for my review!
Look, this one’s easy. It’s a Pixar film. They can do no wrong. And let me tell you why, it’s not a magic formula. They don’t do things the way the rest of Hollywood does. They work long and hard on an film until it’s perfect. They come up with one strong, original concept and build a story around it; a story they develop to perfection before everything else. They give that story layers of meaning so you can enjoy it whatever age you are. The animation is inspired and informed by the great animators of the past. They give each film time (four years in this case) so the team can work, polish, perfect and work some more until it’s the best it can be.
All processes that on the surface seem obvious, but are ignored everyday by disorganised, uninspired people in seach of the fast buck. An attitude by no means exclusive to the film industry …
Contrast this with the boring, uninspired cash-in that Shrek 2 was (I’m not even going to bother reviewing it here) and you can see what I mean.
Put the ingredients together with a dash (excuse the pun) of pure genius and you have The Incredibles. It’s fast-paced, touching, funny, exciting, stylish, clever and beautifully made. Everything you’ve come to expect from a Pixar film.
Four and a half flabby bellies out of five.
Jan 13, 2005 @ 13:37:18
Totally concur. Y’know, one of the great things about Pixar is that they seem to be able to do something that very few (recent anyway) American films can do, and that is, get in a really sweet morality (in this case, the strength of a loving family) and not make it mawkish and overly sentimental as is the way with Spielberg, Zemeckis et al. ‘Incredibles’ runs two hours and I saw it in a cinema full of kids. I don’t think I heard a peep out of any but the very youngest of them. It was the same when I saw ‘Monster’s Inc’
Pixar is doing all the right things and have managed to not drop the ball once. I don’t think even Disney managed that when Walt was alive.
I actually think that this film is perfect. For me, nothing needed fixing and that is so rare that it gets 5 pairs of external underpants out of 5.
(I am deeply worried about ‘Cars’ though – the trailer looks so irksomely contrived ‘cute’ and goofy that it makes me want to puke. The bug-on-windscreen gag not withstanding)
Jan 13, 2005 @ 13:56:39
Perfect huh? Well, with my earlier experience of overscaling my ratings, I’m saving that big 5 out of 5 for the lifechanging ones …
And yes, I’m a bit worried about Cars too … but perhaps it’s just because it’s an extremely early trailer.
Jan 14, 2005 @ 12:30:42
Perfect because I walked out of it thinking “well, what would you change?” It sets out to tell a little moral tale, be funny, exciting, culturally relevant, silly, technologically flawless and does all those things. It seemed to please its little-folk audience, and it certainly pleased the big folks who were there. Not a life-changer by any means, but I don’t think that that was in the game plan. I say it is perfect in the sense that Disney’s ‘Pinocchio’ is perfect – you look back on it and think of how brilliantly it was achieved and how skillful were all those concerned. I don’t think I’ve seen many films in the last ten years that could claim that level of achievement.
As for ‘Cars’, well, I just don’t remember ever seeing a Pixar trailer where I thought “Yeah, OK. Ho hum.” It has the additional patina of Merchandising Opportunity spotted all over it. Now I know that Pixar is probably a merchandising goldmine with every other bloody thing they’ve done, but this just feels… well… icky.