The Incredibles

Fun For All Ages

What happens when the superheroes of the world are forced into hiding and have to live normal, everyday lives as their alter egos/aliases?  This is what happens in 2004’s animated blockbuster “The Incredibles”.

It’s all in a day’s work for Mr. Incredible a.k.a. Bob Parr (voice of Craig T. Nelson).  Mr. Incredible helps in a police pursuit, stops a robbery by Bomb Voyage (voice of Dominique Louis), catches a man who jumps from a building, saves a train filled with passengers about to be derailed and frees a ladies’ cat from a tree.  He also gets rid of Buddy (voice of Jason Lee), his self-proclaimed “biggest fan” and has time to get married to Helen a.k.a. Elastigirl (voice of Holly Hunter).

But things take a turn for the worse soon after.  Having to deal with a number of lawsuits brought on by civilians (including a lawsuit against Mr. Incredible by the passengers of the train and the man he saved from certain death), the government is forced to relocate all superheroes and keep their identities secret.

Several years later we find Bob and Helen Parr living in the suburbs with their three children: Violet (voice of Sarah Vowell), Dash (voice of Spencer Fox) and Jack Jack (voices of Maeve Andrews and Eli Fucile).  Bob has a job in insurance claims where he is reprimanded almost daily by his boss for helping people.  And for fun he and Lucius a.k.a. Frozone (voice of Samuel L. Jackson) listen to police radios trying to help out in different situations.

Things change, however, when Bob is contacted by Mirage (voice of Elizabeth Pena) to help capture a rogue robot on a distant island.  But who controls this mysterious operation?  Will Mr. Incredible and his family become part of its growing number of victims?

I was pleasantly surprised by “The Incredibles” and it’s definitely become one of my favorite animated films!  The plot of the movie was original with not only great main characters but fun and interesting secondary characters.  One of my favorites has to be Edna (voice of Brad Bird) who is a quirky fashion diva who makes costumes/suits for superheroes.

The story develops in an interesting way and is paced to keep your attention.  You even keep your eyes glued to the screen during dinnertime at the Parr household just to see what will happen next.  There’s never a dull moment.

The only things that could have been added to the film would be a few more scenes with Syndrome (voice of Jason Lee) just to get more of a maniacal/goofy feel for the character.  Also a few scenes to see what was happening with Jack Jack and Kari (voice of Bret Parker) would have been interesting.  (There are a few funny scenes between the two on the deleted scenes section of the DVD.)  But from the phone calls that we were able to overhear, we can imagine what was happening back at home!

If you’re looking for an enjoyable and fun movie then look no further than “The Incredibles”.  It’s a movie the entire family can watch. 

"The Incredibles" Movie Goofs!

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