Incredibles (Blu-ray)

The Incredibles

Astounding visual effects, none of them special, and stunning computer graphics featuring characters obviously ripped out of the Tim Burton sketchbook and given more light, life and color, along with a predictable sexist and racist story that has no immediate artistic or aesthetic value to any viewer make this your typical modern blockbuster film to brainwash the whole family.

When retired superhero Bob Parr/Mister Incredible(Craig T. Nelson, Coach, Where the Buffalo Roam) throws his boss through a wall, causing himself to lose his employment, he is forced to take on the only other job he really knows how to do, being a superhero hellbent on saving the planet. However, his wife, Helen/Elastigirl(Holly Hunter, O, Brother, Where Art Thou) is dead set on having their family live a normal suburban life with their kids, Violet(Sarah Vowell, Six Degrees), Daniel/Dash(Spencer Fox, Air Buddies), and baby Jack-Jack(Voiced by Eli Fucile and Maeve Andrews) who has no super powers.

Mirage(Elizabeth Pena), follows the retired Mister Incredible around as he spends his nights secretly fighting crime with his friend Lucius Best/Frozone(Samuel L. Jackson, Coming to America, Snakes on a Plane), and when he loses his job as an insurance agent it is her duty to hire Mister Incredible for a top secret assignment: the destruction of a super computer that has apparently gone haywire.

After defeating the monstrous mech, Mister Incredible returns to his home and is happier than ever. He suddenly has time for his kids and time for his wife... and time to work out in a montage where he kisses each family member on the cheek, spends twelve seconds with them and then works out, primarily by lifting trains at the local stockyard.

A second call from Mirage returns Mister Incredible to the island where he encountered the supercomputer droid. A second attacks him and apparently defeats him. But it is no accident and the machine is not malfunctioning. In the movie's first of two predictable plot twists, it is a machine designed by evil for the destruction of good.

Buddy(Jason Lee, Mallrats My Name is Earl) Mister Incredible's biggest fan from the old days has surfaced as a supervillain with his only power being that of thought. He is angry with Mister Incredible because Mister Incredible would not let Buddy/IncrediKid/Syndrome be his sidekick back in the old days. All grown up and very angry, Syndrome, for no reason I can imagine but to make the masses believe that being able to think makes you evil, plans to not just take over the world, but utterly destroy it.

Discovering her husband's whereabouts and assuming his intentions, an enraged Helen makes flight in a jet borrowed from an old friendto the island fortress of Syndrome. And for a really lame plot push, the kids somehow came along and hid in the back of the plane. Though how they got into her car and through the required clearance to get aboard the plane is left hanging to make a viewer think that their imagination is being encouraged when it is actually being crushed.

Syndrome, having captured Mister Incredible, destroys the plane containing the hero's family and both are led to believe that everyone aboard has been killed but, in a misfiring of movie editing, the suspense for the viewer is nonexistent because we are shown the daring escape of Mister Incredible's family before we are shown his reaction. Absolutely cheap and unprofessional presentation, there.

This is immediately followed by an Oedipal innuendo featuring Dash paddling his mother, Elastigirl, who has flattened her body into a hydrofoil, across the ocean for hours though it should have taken minutes by the story's own presentation of Dash's speed and the two fall on the beach at sunset gasping and grinning and Elastigirl says: "What a trooper! I'm so proud of you."

After leaving her children in a cave, warning them to stay on their toes at all times, Elastigirl is distracted by a mirror reflection her butt, which she admires for a moment, and is subsequently nearly killed five times. And she left the kids in a cave that was actually an exhaust line for Syndrome's diabolical missile that will launch his superdroids on the people of Earth. When the missile is launched, both children are very nearly killed.

Then, rather than thinking about saving the day, because the movie purports to be pro feminist at the start, Elastigirl is pent up with rage, after watching Syndrome's army of goons run outside with a speaker blaring "Intruder alert" does not realize that the intruders MUST be her children and goes on to punch Mirage in the face while Mirage is rescuing Mister Incredible because Mister incredible hugged Mirage when she told him his family had survived. Only then, actually after being told by Mirage, does Elastigirl come to the conclusion that the intruder alert was pertaining to her children so she and her husband should do something. But the kids are not foremost on her mind; even though Mister Incredible has kissed her and called her the most amazing woman on Earth, and her children are in imminent peril from goons who take no prisoners, all she can think about is the fact that she saw her husband hug another woman. That's feminism, for ya!

After escaping, and battling heartless two dimensional strawman goons the entire family is captured by Syndrome and locked away. But they escape again! This time to the mainland to battle Syndrome's evil mechazoid monster.

Then we have a bit of sexist/racist/anti-humanistic banter between Lucius Best and his wife that demonstrates the clear belief that Disney has of the absolute mental inferiority of women who are willing to get married.

There are fifteen minutes left, and they contain plot twist number two.

Syndrome, who had been IncrediKid in his youth, pretends to be a superhero in order to show up his old hero and tries to defeat his own mechanical monster. But it destroys his electro gloves, leaving whatever city it is to be demolished by his superior thought process and inferiority complex of a destructo-bot.

And suddenly, Elastigirl is not just super stretchy, but uncharacteristically super strong, as she hauls a Winnebago containing her family by her arms and legs through the sky, clinging to a rocket ship.

For some reason, as the city is being deconstructed by the evil robot, traffic is normal. And then, the entire Incredibles family, only one of whom is Ticklike with nigh invulnerability, survive flipping in a Winnebeao a couple dozen times. Then the parents have another argument that almost leads to the deaths of their children again. For no reason, the death bot has zeroed in on them and is trying very much harder than it has to stop or destroy anything in the past to stop them.

Suddenly Lucius arrives as Frozone! And, working together, with a sight gag bit, Mister Incredible and his family/team save the day.

Syndrome escapes, but all of his assets are frozen and the government has him put on some watch list.

And then it turns out that baby Jack-Jack, who has spent the entire adventure with a babysitter, has super powers after all. Surprise! And Jack-Jack saves the day by incidentally being a shapeshifter kidnapped by Syndrome in a last ditch effort to save face.

And at last, superheroes are allowed to walk the streets in disguises they feel comfortable in, saving the day from mole people.