Cartoon Corner- The Incredibles

Originally posted at the DL November 2015

Or the Fantastic Four and Watchmen had a baby.



Okay so I'm not entirely sure how to tackle this one.  Aside from going down the list of all the stuff Brad Bird tucked into it, which is long because he's one of those geek hero types that wears his influences on his sleeves and wants you to know all the cool shit he's blending into his smoothie, it's fundamentally just a very smart take on all the classic deconstructionist hero stories.  It's worth pointing out that the film does a lot more use of footage and recordings than you normally see in animation.  That is, there's parts of the movie that are aged up recordings of the heroes, or scenes of characters watching monitors or iPad messages, and I feel like they actually do have a slightly different look than the actual action, like it's... flatter.

And obviously they basically made Brody a supervillain, so that's there.

I found myself thinking a lot more about the messaging watching it for the writeup.  I haven't actually watched the movie in quite a few years, and in that time you do see the occasional listical or other internet rambling that more or less calls the whole contrast between the Supers and everyone else  Randian.  And if you want to squint at them right all super hero fiction has that sort of slant to it, the inherent assumption of the genre is you have a bunch of exceptional people working outside the law because the law has failed.  Not the appeal I've ever found in them, but some writers absolutely take the idea and run with it, and it's sort of the gremlin inherent in the philosophy.
Incredibles doesn't actually use that angle at all though, because the setting somewhat unusually has all super heroes (or all the ones we see) registered as officers of some governmental body to start with, and then they're all decommissioned due to the prologue.  The whole thing becomes more analogous to the creative process, where if you have some idea or talent you're just not going to be a well adjusted person unless you embrace it.  You can't 'be normal', let the freak flag fly, y'know.

Although you'll see in the same breath people complaining about the demonization of the insurance dude, all "He's right you have to think of the poor stockholders!".  Completely ignoring that the things he actually berates Bob over amount to "HOW DARE YOU MAKE SURE WE HONOR OUR CUSTOMER'S POLICIES" and is probably downright illegal.  But who will think of the poor, poor stockholders.

But yeah this is firmly within my wheelhouse obviously, but I can't quite muster up unending adoration for it even though I feel like I had it at one time.  Still very good in all respects though.

Rating- 8/10