The Incredibles

Just got back from seeing The Incredibles, the newest Pixar Animation film, for the second time. I know, I know. You're gonna say, "My God boy! The film only came out last night and you've already seen it twice?" In my defense, I offer the following. A) Pixar is really, really good. I love all of their films. Monsters, Inc is my favorite, though The Incredibles is a close second. B) I went to see it with different friends and siblings each time, whom I had promised to see the movie with - as for the old Seinfeld joke about "saving" movies, I don't believe in it, but I also don't have a problem with seeing a good movie twice. C) I love superheroes, and superhero films. And comic books. I had to go by 8th St Books & Comics and pick up my weekly dose right after the movie today. As of today Spider-man 2 is battling The Passion of the Christ for the spot of my favourite film of the year - ah, yes the epic battle between my devotion to issues of faith and fantasy. The Incredibles is definitely Top Ten material as well. Finally, D) (And this is probably the geekiest reason of all) I wanted to see the trailer for Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, but to my chagrin, it wasn't playing either time, despite the fact that it was supposed to be attached to all prints of The Incredibles. Pissed me off big time. Of course I read on the theforce.net that some theatre chains were confused by the fact that the Star Wars trailer came labelled as "Sand Dogs" (a code name to stave off theives, and commonly used by Lucasfilm) and didn't attach the trailer. Arrgh, their stupidity pisses me off. Though the trailer will be online Monday, but I wanted to see it in theatres.

As for The Incredibles, I thought it was great. Definitely one of the best superhero films of all time. It explores some of the ideas and themes common in books like Fantasic Four and so, with the idea of a family of superheros. Also, the animation was on par with the best stuff that Pixar has done. So it looked amazing. One of the things that it got me thinking about was how the portrayal of powers and superheros looks different from the art on the page of comic book, to the big screen. This is somewhere in between. It has the stylized look of comic book art, but the realism of something like the Spider-man films. It also made me realize that regardless of how rediculous it looks, the ability to stretch and be elastic (ala Elastigirl in the film, or Reed Richards in FF) is actually a much better power than people would think and capable of some pretty impressive stuff.