The Incredibles

If there's one definite method to produce a motion picture, The Incredibles is how you do it!

With superhero subject in hand, Disney and Pixar could have easily gone the safest route - target kids alone and grab cash the quickest at box office. But what Brad Bird and his team from The Iron Giant brought to the table was beyond phenomenal! Strong, strong writing was the sturdy backbone the filmmakers relied on, resulting in one of the greatest superhero films of all time!

The Incredibles opened with TV interviews of superheroes, high and mighty in their pride, ego and belief of working alone. A summation of the Lie was Mr. Incredible (voiced by Craig T. Nelson), our protagonist. We see his daily routine, supporting characters and how he unintentionally creates his biggest nemesis. Life after forced retirement was tough, as you could see he's visually stuck in the box-shaped car. Him saving people at every chance he received in the insurance company he worked for reflected the very nature of his character fantastically! It's hard for him to embrace mediocrity, and just like him, all the side characters faced the similar ordeal. More than fitting in, it hurts to not do what you're supposed to. Although the set-up might be a little long, it listed and backed up the decision Mr. Incredible would make at Inciting Incident with enough motivations and reasonings, which helped the plot effortlessly segue into Plot Point I - the adventure that would forever change our hero!

General anticipation walking into a superhero action flick is, well, to see a lot of actions! So, how does one do it without projecting excessiveness and futility? This is why Brad Bird's writing and direction deserve all praises, as he clearly understood how to mash elements like fun, powerful, meaningful and classic into each and every scene! Since the story's dealing with people of special abilities, the writer-director made the personas utilize it in their everyday actions and reflexes, as that's their normality! It quickly became natural to the eyes and when human connections were attached to the proceedings, the events became smooth. For instance, a typical family fight or argument would happen in every household. When this family does it, they did it the same way, except in the manners these characters would normally do it - with powers. As the audiences, we got to witness them exhibiting their powers. At the same time, it developed their characters as well! Such brilliance could be seen during Dash and Violet learning how to use their abilities before protecting each other and Mr. Incredible saving a cat while capturing a baddie with the same plucked tree. Even it was meant for genre-based expectations service like the training montages and costumes creation sequences, again, it did push the narration forward and dug deep into our beloved characters' traits plus vulnerability!

Whenever the movie launched itself into action episodes, it didn't permit you to breathe! Initial encounter with Syndrome (voiced by Jason Lee), forest and volcano fight with self-learning robot, Elastigirl swinging from pillar to pillar before reaching the roller coaster pod, body parts stuck between doors, plane attack to actual team-up running across waters and Dash's first ever run to save the day were pure amazeballs! The Truth our main character had to learn was teamwork and selflessness. And when that transpired, creative combos hit the fan and a mind-boggling climax was born! Tensions and thrills were spiked through narrowing passageway, ticking time, guards and private compound infiltration!

In the midst of all these, marriage at stake, Violet finally tying her hair back visually showing us she has no need to hide any longer and all supporting characters completing an arc were the human touches Brad Bird brought to his offering. Being meta by showing fans to superheroes rendered this picture grounded as it knew exactly what it was! Syndrome was not a purposeless villain. You could get behind why was he like that, and the plan to kill all superheroes with his continuously evolving prototypes was a surprising revelation. Even whether the baby has super powers or not was answered at the finale, leaving no ends untied. You may wonder why Edna's discussing disadvantages of capes, but turned out, that's exactly how the antagonist perished eventually. Setup and payoff.

The animation was excellent! First of all, you'd remember each and every one of the characters just by the way they were drawn, be it Elastigirl (voiced by Holly Hunter), Dash (voiced by Spencer Fox), Violet (voiced by Sarah Vowell), Edna (voiced by Brad Bird), baby Jack-Jack (voiced by Eli Fucile and Maeve Andrews) and not to forget, the ever-iconic Samuel L. Jackson voiced Frozone. Even smaller roles like the square-faced boss and Dash's teacher were memorable! Furthermore, the settings were really cool! Colorful costumes, aesthetic venues, waterfalls, underground caves, you name it! Gadgets such as camera-eyed tropical bird, home signal trigger and sticky expanding trap were exciting! News footage with old TV grains, that's called pushing quality to the next level!

Michael Giacchino's score was legendary! Ask any 90s kid, they'll tell ya how it was their anthem! Pucca sound design enhanced the experience even more! Dialogues were resounding, albeit a couple of them served to spew unasked exposition.