The Incredibles (2004)

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Plot

Fifteen years later, Bob and Helen live unhappy suburban lives in the city of Metroville. Their young son Dash can run faster than the human eye can see, and their teen daughter Violet can turn invisible and create protective force fields, but the family is required to hide their powers as part of the government's Superhero Relocation Program. The baby, Jack-Jack, appears to be an ordinary child. Bob has gained a lot of weight, and he feels frustrated by his office job with an insurance company. He regularly sneaks out to secretly fight crime with his friend Frozone, who can freeze things by spraying them with ice.

One day, Bob loses his temper and assaults his boss, who refused to let him rescue an innocent crime victim, but before he can tell Helen he was fired, he finds a video message from a beautiful woman named Mirage, who offers him a large sum of money to stop Omnidroid 9000, an out-of-control robot on a remote island. Bob accepts the offer, is flown to the island, and disables the robot. Afterward, he takes his torn superhero suit to be repaired by the famous fashion designer Edna Mode. Edna also makes new suits for Bob and his family. Bob requests a cape for his supersuit, but Edna refuses, citing numerous cape-related superhero casualties.

With plenty of money and satisfying work, Bob happily spends his days getting back into shape, still pretending to have his old job. However, his next trip to the island is a trap: Omnidroid and the island are owned by Mr. Incredible's old fan, Buddy, who now calls himself Syndrome and intends to avenge himself against Mr. Incredible and the other Supers for shunning him. He has already killed many Supers by luring them to the island to fight Omnidroid, improving its design as they revealed its weaknesses. His plan is to make people believe he is a Super by staging a fake battle with the robot. Bob is attacked by Omnidroid and barely escapes from Syndrome.

Meanwhile, Helen discovers the repair on Bob's old supersuit. She visits Edna, who gives her the new set of suits and helps her locate Bob with a homing beacon, but Syndrome's security system detects the homing signal and captures him. After learning that Bob lost his job, Helen flies to the island in a jet, with Dash and Violet secretly stowing away and Jack-Jack at home with a babysitter. Syndrome shoots the jet down with some missiles, but Helen, Dash, and Violet survive and make their way onto the island. After hiding the children in the jungle, Helen sneaks into Syndrome's facility to rescue Bob, only to find him embracing Mirage, who freed him after a confrontation in which Syndrome refused to save her life. Bob and Helen find the children, who triggered the Island's security system shortly after Syndrome launched a rocket to fly Omnidroid to Metroville. After a lengthy action sequence, Syndrome captures the family and follows the robot in a jet, but they escape and follow him in a second rocket with help.

In Metroville, Syndrome uses a remote-control device to prevent Omnidroid from harming him, but he is knocked unconscious after the robot's artificial intelligence becomes aware of the device and shoots it off of him. When the Parrs arrive, they and Frozone defeat the robot, and when Syndrome wakes up and tries to kidnap Jack-Jack, Jack-Jack uses his recently emerged superpowers to attack him. Bob and Helen save Jack-Jack after Syndrome drops him in midair, and Syndrome is killed when his cape gets caught in one of his jet's engines. Three months later, after Dash races with his school track team and Violet makes a date with a boy she likes, a new villain called the Underminer appears and the Incredibles prepare to fight him.

Production

Holly Hunter, voice of Elastigirl

Challenges during production

Bird's story was filled with elements that were difficult to animate with CGI at the time. Creating an all-human cast required creating new technology to animate detailed human anatomy, clothing and realistic skin and hair. Long hair had never been done by Pixar until this point. Disney was initially reluctant to make the film because of these issues, feeling a live action film would be preferable, though Pixar executive John Lasseter vetoed this.
 

Reception

Critics

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was bored by the film's recurring pastiches of earlier action films, concluding, "the Pixar whizzes do what they do excellently; you just wish they were doing something else."Similarly, Jessica Winter of the Village Voice criticized the film for playing as a standard summer action film, despite being released in early November. Her review, titled as "Full Metal Racket," noted that "The Incredibles announces the studio's arrival in the vast yet overcrowded Hollywood lot of eardrum-bashing, metal-crunching action sludge."

Makers of the 2005 film Fantastic Four were forced to make significant script changes and add more special effects because of similarities to the storyline of The Incredibles.

Box Office

Awards

Release

TV

DVD

2-disc collector's edition DVD cover

• Introduction, an introduction for the extras featuring Brad Bird.
• Deleted Scenes, the film's deleted scenes plus an intro for all but one of them. The other one is only accessible as an Easter egg.
• Jack-Jack Attack, a Pixar short film made especially for the release of The Incredibles about what happened while Kari was babysitting Jack-Jack.
• The Making of The Incredibles, a documentary about making The Incredibles featuring about 30 of the crew members.
  • More Making of The Incredibles, another longer documentary also about making The Incredibles.
• Incredi-Blunders. The Incredibles outtakes due to glitches in animation programming, or scenes included for intentional humor.
• Vowellet: An Essay by Sarah Vowell, a documentary about the life of Sarah Vowell, a writer who did the voice of Violet Parr
• Character Interviews, actor and actresses interview the characters
• Theatrical Trailers, The Incredibles film trailers.
• Mr. Incredible and Pals, a Mr. Incredible cartoon spoofing cheesy superhero cartoons from the 1960s, as well as Synchro-Vox cartoons like Clutch Cargo.
  • Mr. Incredible and Pals With Commentary, the cartoon with the characters' commentary.
• NSA Files, info about the supers.
• Boundin', a Pixar short film written, directed, composed, production designed and narrated by Bud Luckey.
  • Boundin With Commentary, Boundin' with commentary by Bud Luckey.
  • Who Is Bud Luckey? a four-minute documentary about the making of Boundin'.

There are also several Easter eggs in the menus; the one on the main menu shows every door, button and explosion in the movie. Some of the other menus have more than one Easter egg movie; which one plays appears to be a random choice. One of the eggs on the first Index menu is a short sockpuppet version of the movie.

Merchandise

Kellogg's cereal

Several companies released promotional products related to the movie. Dark Horse Comics released a limited series of comic books based on the movie. Kellogg's released an Incredibles-themed cereal, as well as promotional Pop Tarts and fruit snacks, all proclaiming an "Incrediberry Blast" of flavor. Furthermore, in the weeks before the movie's opening, there were also promotional tie-ins with SBC Communications (using Dash to promote the "blazing-fast speed" of its SBC Yahoo! DSL service) and McDonald's. Toy maker Hasbro produced a series of action figures and toys based on the film, although the line was not as successful as the film itself.

In Europe, Kinder chocolate eggs contained small plastic toy characters from the film.

In Belgium, car manufacturer Opel sold special The Incredibles editions of their cars.

In the United Kingdom, Telewest promoted blueyonder internet services with branding from the film, including television adverts starring characters from the film.

In all merchandising outside of the film itself, Elastigirl is referred to as Mrs. Incredible. This is due to a licensing agreement between Disney/Pixar and DC Comics, who has a character named Elasti-Girl (a member of the Doom Patrol).