Pretty Incredible
by Wendy at 11/10/2004 03:50:00 PM
John and I went to see The Incredibles Saturday night. We both thought it was pretty good though John liked it a lot more than me (probably a carryover from a childhood spent watching all those superhero cartoons). Its been said that a truly good animated action picture would be impossible to make, but I thought they pulled it off with the Incredibles
One of the trailers we saw was for the new Tom Hanks animated holiday flick, Polar Express. From reading this, it looks like the uncanny valley has struck again.
Though the Incredibles managed some amazing realism - some of the detail in the modeling of the characters' hair comes to mind as an example - at its core it was still essentially a cartoon with cartoonish characters, and managed to avoid all the creepiness. We would both heartily recommend it, though you might want to wait a few weeks to see if Pixar adds in the obligatory outtakes in the ending credits.
I was totally enamored of the 60's retro-future look of the whole movie. You almost expect to see Sean Connery walk out of the jungle in a tux, karate chop a guard, and sneak into the bad guys hideout. I'd give it an Oscar for art direction if it was up to me (do animated movies qualify?). The Bonestall-style Von Braun rocket was too cool.
The story is quite good - much better than the "lost kid" plot typical of US animated films. I also thought Holly Hunter was the perfect choice for ElastiGirl. Just looking at him, I expected that Mr. Incredible would sound like Patrick Warburton, but Craig T Nelson was able to bring a lot more emotional content to his character than I imagine Warburton could. Another good choice.
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