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You may have noticed that this does not sound like the typical tot-friendly Pixar fare. It's not. This is the studio's first PG-rated film, and it earns that rating with a surprising barrage of gunfire, explosions, bad guys who get vaporized, good guys who stop in front of the mirror to admire their sexy backsides, and some action that will have youngsters diving under their theater seats. Helen warns her kids that their enemies "won't exercise restraint because you are children. They will kill you."

The villainous Syndrome (voiced by Jason Lee) does his thing

But don't worry—Pixar's focus on the family has never been stronger. Packaging The Incredibles as family fun, Bird baits grownups into the cinema for a big fat serving of family therapy. He packs in observations about identity, family dynamics, the dangers of praising mediocrity, and the consequences of cultivating a lawsuit-happy culture (where heroes like doctors and teachers live in fear of offending trigger-happy patients and parents). "Valuing life is not a weakness," one brave soul defiantly declares, "and disregarding it is not strength!" There's even a message for potential adulterers, with a not-so-subtle suggestion that Mr. Incredible might pair up with a sexy new partner. Bob, Helen, Violet, and Dash learn to stretch their faith in each other, growing from a sullen, spat-prone clan into a rejuvenated and—if you will—purpose-driven family.

Bird accomplishes all of this without ever letting the momentum of his virtuosic storytelling stumble. What is more, his movie never stoops to crass punchlines, never flaunts any extraneous pop music in order to sell a soundtrack album, and avoids cheap pop culture references. It exposes the Shrek films as sophomoric and vastly inferior.

As an animated work, The Incredibles lacks the beauty and grace of Finding Nemo, but it has a different agenda. Here, Pixar takes digitally generated mayhem to new levels, offering us the most expressive human characters ever created by a computer. Pixar's animators impressively adjust their style to match Bird's designs, which have more in common with the frenetic exaggerations of Looney Tunes than with Toy Story. (Syndrome looks like an homage to that classic villain from The Year Without a Santa Claus, the Heat Miser, his bright red hair flaring up like a flame from his matchstick head.)

What you see is only half of the fun. The sound design is enthralling, and, like his work for TV's Alias, Michael Giacchino's nostalgic score echoes classic spy-flick themes. Characters and voices are perfectly matched, the best of which belongs to the Incredibles' costume designer, Edna, who looks like famed Hollywood costumer Edith Head. She's voiced—believe it or not—by Bird himself.

Things are heating up for Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson)

The Incredibles' only weakness is the familiarity of its superhero genre. The family's super powers are surprisingly standard stuff, although they do use those powers with staggering cleverness. (In the most riotous sequence, Helen demonstrates that mothers really can fight several battles at once.) Many action sequences merely revise things we've seen before. Indiana Jones outran a boulder; Mr. Incredible outruns a smart boulder. The Skywalker twins fled from stormtroopers on speeder bikes; the super-kids dodge Velocipads, speeder discs with tree-cutting bumpers. Syndrome probably bought his volcanic fortress at a James Bond auction. One violent crisis so closely resembles a scene from Spider-Man 2 that it must be an unfortunate (but uncanny) coincidence.

But Bird knows he's in familiar territory, so he has fun tweaking the conventions. There's a hilarious tangent about the impracticality of superhero capes. And later, Syndrome interrupts a gloating speech about his evil plans to chuckle, "Now you've got me monologuing!"

Is The Incredibles Pixar's finest achievement? That all depends on your units of measurement. For this Pixar fan, The Incredibles is not as moving or as visually pleasing as Finding Nemo or Toy Story 2. It is, however, a stronger "Episode One" than Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Monsters, Inc. It's also more ambitious and complicated, and the spectacular antics run a full 115 minutes—the most generous Pixar flick yet.

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