THE INCREDIBLES
I loved Brad Bird's THE IRON GIANT. It was an intelligently crafted story with great commentary on the running threads of Cold War era ideology, from hipsters to hawks. It had an anti-weapon vibe without feeling like liberal propoganda. Bird's new movie, bankrolled by the boys at Pixar, is more great stuff. It begins with the great premise that crusaders for justice are forced by incessant lawsuits to hang up their capes and go into the superhero relocation program, where they are forced to subside in mediocrity like the rest of us. A lesser creative team would have built eighty-five minutes on this high concept, but Bird, Lassiter, and the boys give us no less than a 105-minute adventure which pays homage not only to the superhero genre, but the action-adventure genre in general, and the James Bond franchise in particular.
An interesting side note is that the four of us rarely make it out to a movie together. We caught a Sunday 415P showing in Calabasas. The theater was so packed that we ended up in the second row. Seated in the front row, not far from us, was another family of four headed by A-list action star, Will Smith. He was not in disguise, not "forced underground" like the hero on the screen, and often, his distinctive honking laugh was the loudest in the theater, as he slapped his thigh and whispered to his wife. It was neat to be reminded that there are incredible people in our midst every day who are not ashamed of their abilities or forced to hide their specialness to placate the masses who demand a level playing field so that we all may feel special. As the villain in the film proclaims: "When everyone is special, then nobody will be special."
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