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The movie follows Robert Parr and his utter frustration at having to have to give up his hero persona. There was a time when his wife and he use to save the day in the city of Municiberg but after many lawsuit of bystanders claiming they were hurt due to their doings they have to give up their jobs as superheroes. Time goes by and in those years Robert and Helen Parr grow their family and have relocated to Metroville. Robert Parr looks to be having a horrible time living a life where he has to work a 9 to 5 job and come home to his three children. He does not feel fulfilled and it also appears that, that is causing a rift between his wife and he. He eventually loses his job as he loses his temper with his boss for not letting him save the day as he has been doing undercover.
However, he is unable to tell his wife as he is offered a large sum of money by a mysterious woman who wants him to stop a robot in a remote island. It ends up being all part of the supervillain's plan Syndrome who used to be Robert Parr's sidekick and who was taking his revenge out on Robert for denying him as his sidekick all those years before. It ends up taking all the Parr family and Robert's best friend Frozone to defeat Syndrome and his robot Omnidroid. In the end, the family becomes closer together and Robert feels rejuvenated.
In recently reading Fantastic Four, I can not help but see the amount of similarities these two families have. Mr. Incredible's powers remind me a lot of the Thing. Elastigirl appears to have a lot of the leadership abilities and the supernatural abilities of Mr.Fantastic. Violet has a lot of the abilities of the Invisible Woman. Dash does not have the same abilities of the Human Torch but their mischvieous personalities are also very similar. In addition, one can not miss the family aspect that both superhero families have. It appears the superheroes of today can not escape the influence of yesterday's superheroes.
The storyline also reminded me a lot of Watchmen due to the whole idea of the government hiding the superheroes as the public no longer wants them a part of their lives. The characters then getting utterly frustrated trying to find a new way to live and "fit" in.
The movie is an absolute joy to watch and one I totally recommend. If you haven't seen it go check it out.
Jackie, yeah, I see the Fantastic Four and Watchmen parallels very clearly.
ReplyDeleteThe trope of outlawing or trying to register or "restrict" superheroes has become a common trope in comic books since the late mid-eighties, when Watchmen did it (and to an extent so did The Dark Knight Returns); you can see it in series like DC's The Golden Age, in which the Justice Society falls prey to, basically, McCarthyism or Cold War paranoia (the characters are pressured to testify before Congress). And of course the recent Civil War storyline from Marvel plays this card in a big way. To see this motif in a family film, though, was, I thought, surprising and interesting.
In fact the film's whole critique of conformism is carried out to a subversive degree. The Incredibles is a very smart film!
Is Elastigirl a rejoinder to the relatively weak Invisible Girl of the early FF?
PS. What do you think of The Incredibles as an animated film? What do you think of how it looks, how it sounds?
ReplyDeleteI kind of do think Elastigirl is another Invisible Girl. Her adventures basically follow that of her husband. She has no role other than supporting him.
ReplyDeleteI like the way The Incredibles looked and sounded. It was really good I think for their time they kind of led the way in terms of animation. The first time I saw it was in theaters in the IMAX so I think my opinion is a little bias but I simply thought it was amazing.