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The Incredibles Our rating: Rate this movie   MPAA rating: PG (for action violence) Theater release: November 05, 2004 by Disney/Pixar Directed by: Brad Bird Runtime: 1 hour 55 minutes Cast: Craig T. Nelson (Bob Parr/Mr. Incredible), Holly Hunter (Helen Parr/Elastigirl), Samuel L. Jackson (Lucius Best/Frozone), Jason Lee (Buddy Pine/Syndrome), Sarah Vowell (Violet), Spencer Fox (Dashiell "Dash" Parr) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

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Kids are going to love The Incredibles, and it's possible their parents will love it even more. I'm betting a lot of dads and moms get action figures of Mr. Incredible and his wife Elastigirl in their stockings this year, and they'll be proud to display them at home or at work. While The Incredibles looks like a movie for the kid in all of us, the storytelling of writer-director Brad Bird is aimed straight at the concerns of grownups. The film makes as many key points as a presidential candidate on the campaign trail, and yet it does so with such seamless, exhilarating big screen entertainment that the profound convictions driving the action barely register until we stagger smiling from the theater.

It doesn't matter which scale you use to measure The Incredibles' success. As a comedy, a family film, a social commentary, a superhero movie, and as an animated feature, this movie excels. Just as Mr. Incredible and his nuclear family prove they're equipped to save the world from evil, the "dream team" of Brad Bird, the brain behind the overlooked masterpiece called The Iron Giant, and John Lasseter, director of both Toy Story movies, looks poised to defend family entertainment against mediocrity through what we can only hope will be a long-running franchise. The joy they find in working together is obvious, and it brings radiance and vitality to every frame of this film.

Nothing like a little cooperation when doing the housework

The story begins in a metropolis where the populace, like Bird and Company, are nostalgic for the simple valor of a bygone era of bold heroes who could save the world, unfettered by criticism and litigation.

Mr. Incredible (voiced with impressive range by Craig T. Nelson), a hero with a chin to make Jay Leno feel threatened, used to save the world as part of his daily routine. He took pride in casually wielding a tree as a crime-fighting weapon, and yet he was humble and patient enough to first remove the cat stuck in its branches. During that time, his central principle—"I work alone"—was challenged by a pretty piece of Silly Putty called Elastigirl (Holly Hunter, milking that quirky Southern accent for all its worth), who married him and taught him that family commitment requires one to be "more than flexible."

But those glory days came to an end. The general public, suffering from inferiority complexes, ran out of "tolerance" for the Supers. They filed lawsuits taking superheroes to task for the collateral damage of crime-fighting. The nation's saviors were driven into a "protection program," forced to blend anonymously into the daily grind, repress their powers, and support the illusion that everyone is comfortably equal in strength.

Bob Parr, er, Mr. Incredible leads his family to the rescue

Now, working a mind-numbing day-job as a claims adjuster for Insuracare, Mr. Incredible has receded into the hulking slouch known as Bob Parr. Bob suffers under the harassment of a whiny supervisor (Wallace Shawn), even as he looms over him. Then he goes home to his wife Helen and finds her patience—and her limbs—stretched to their limits by two tempestuous super-spawn. Violet (Sarah Vowell) is a waifish, willowy teen straight out of Tim Burton's sketch book. At school, she feels invisible, probably because she is invisible whenever a cute boy looks at her. At home, when her turbocharged little brother Dash (Spencer Fox) gets on her nerves, she just puts up a force field, which stops short his speedy approaches with a clang!

In this environment of talent-repression, humdrum routine, and excessive nostalgia, Bob starts sneaking out to perform covert hero-work with his icy super-buddy Lucius (Samuel L. Jackson), a.k.a. "Frozone." That's enough to last until he gets a mysterious invitation to wrestle an un-friendly iron giant, an offer he can't resist. Mirage, an exotic seductress, bastes him with compliments and serves him up like a Christmas turkey to Syndrome (Jason Lee), a nasty supervillain with a grudge. Before long, the whole family is drawn into the excitement, and they're forced to come to terms with the abilities they've stifled for so long.

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