The Incredibles

Caught this on cable, finally.  I'd been wanting to see it.  It looked cute from the previews.  Maybe I looked away just then, but I never saw the bit they used in the commercials where the father was in his study struggling to get in his tights.

Anyway, it indeed was cute.  It starts fifteen years ago.  Mr. Incredible is driving somewhere and hears about a police pursuit.  Looks at his watch, "I've got time."  On his way to intercept that chase, an old woman asks him to get her cat out of a tree.  The chase is headed toward him, so he stops to help the old lady.   To get the cat out of the tree, he uproots the entire tree and (eventually) shakes the cat off the branch.  Just as the pursuit arrives, and he uses the tree to smack the suspect's vehicle.

As he's about to leave, he hears of a caper in progress.  "I've got time..."

That encounter leads to an obvious plot plant.  In addition, he causes a lot of damage and injuries while trying to save people.  This being America in the 1990s, he gets sued by everybody involved.  So, he and all the other superheros end up in what amounts to essentially a witness relocation plan.

He's married to another superhero, Elastigirl.  Super-stretchy.  (Hmm, they didn't mention it, but that trait would have been useful in childbirth.)  They have three kids.  He has a day job that he hates.  He longs to be a superhero, again.

I recognized Craig T. Nelson's voice.  I wouldn't have recognized Holly Hunter's nor Jason Lee's voices if I hadn't seen their names in the Tivo info.  I probably would have gotten Samuel L. Jackson.

Their son is named Dash, and he can run really fast.  The daughter, a young teenager, can turn invisible and put up a force field.  Plus a baby who hasn't exhibited any special powers, yet.  The kids have been taught all their lives to hide their special abilities.  But they use them surreptitiously on occasion.

The graphics were very good.  They have a couple of running gags through the movie.  (A kid on a tricycle happens to see Mr. Incredible lift his car once.   He appears to hang around their house later in order to witness something else amazing.)

There were some dissonant bits.  Much of the environment was fairly normal/realistic.   But in the bad guy's lair, the machines were pretty fantastic.  I know, I know, this is a superhero story.  They're suppose to be fantastic.  I guess maybe I would have liked to see less of the "real" world.  Albeit, this movie did do a much better job of showing the home life of a superhero than Mystery Men did.

On my brother's Total Movie Value Scale, Rental.  It was definitely cute.

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