“The Incredibles”, the latest all singing all dancing 3d animation from Pixar. I have always had a love hate relationship with Pixar. On the one hand, Toy Story was revolutionary, it pushed boundaries and it was one big step in making people take the computer revolution seriously. The graphics were extremely impressive, the voices were memorable, but the plot was this ridiculous cute one-liner fluf. Bambi has become a cliche as being the soft movie, but in Bambi deers died. They were shot and they bled and things went on fire. It was about deers getting by in this crazy messed up world anyway they can.
People often say to me, Joel why can’t you just appreciate the happy things in life? I often reply I can appreciate the happy things, why must you wall yourself up in an alternative reality where everything is colourful and characters are two dimensional? I don’t care if a movie is sappy, or has a happy ending, but it has to be real. There have to be real people I can feel for and I want to know what I’m being fed is the real deal that I can imagine going through. I have felt recently that there has not been any attempt to portray anything other than very soft entertainment with 3d films.
It bothers me that since September 11 it feels like we have had less serious movies. Everything is a kids animated 3d feature. And sure, its fine to have kids movies that are happy go lucky, but who are we kidding here? These are not kids movies the way Spy Kids was a kids movie, many adults and teenagers go and see them. As the world faces greater problems, people are just turning up the blind-o-meter and applying more glitzy, louder, more colourful mindless entertainment. The anti-thought drones are getting their way. The Western world is full of comfort entertainment addicts just looking for another hit, no matter how phony it has become.
“The Incredibles” has by far the best graphics and best storyline of any animated film thus far. The pacing is managed superbly, and when it gets racing its action scenes are intense. The characters are clever but overly cute and lack souls. It will be credited as the first 3d animated film to feature cartoon like human characters, and this is a big milestone. Despite being incensed with rage at the defilement of human culture, I enjoyed it a lot. 3.5 leamas.
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