REVIEWED - THE INCREDIBLES: No, those aren't typographical errors above. The Incredibles, the new computer-generated animation feature from Pixar, does run for close on two hours - that's half an hour longer than Pixar's Toy Story. And, yes, it has a PG certificate here, for "comic book violence", explains www.ifco.ie, the film censor's website. And in a Pixar first, all the key characters are humans, writes Michael Dwyer.
So what is else is new? Not much in terms of plotting, which draws heavily on the staples of live-action spy and superhero movies, but treats them with such wit and imagination as to transcend their familiarity.
An extended prologue introduces the cool, clean heroes whose mission runs the gamut from getting a cute, ginger cat down from a tree to traditional crime-busting. Mr Incredible (voiced by Craig T. Nelson) is square-jawed and with an outsized upper body miraculously supported by matchstick legs, and Elastgirl (Holly Hunter), whom he marries in the first reel, is an ace contortionist.
However, as Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker discovered in Spider-Man 2, the public can be fickle, and after being hit for litigation by stubborn people who actually didn't want to be saved, our champions fall from grace and are consigned to a superhero relocation programme.
Fifteen years later, Mr Incredible and Elastgirl are living under apt pseudonyms as the Parrs in bland suburbia. He's bored and dissatisfied with his job in a mercenary insurance firm, and she cares for their three children, Violet and Dash, both of whom have superpowers of their own, and baby Jack-Jack. The villain of the piece is Syndrome (Jason Lee), an embittered former fan seeking revenge on Mr Incredible for rejecting him, and determined to consolidate his own long-time claim to superherodom.
Whereas piling on knowing popular culture references appears to have been the raison d'etre of Shark Tale and other animated comedies, The Incredibles wears its movie references with a refreshing lightness of touch, drawing on retro designs and a breezy Bondian score and effectively weaving them into the pattern of this vigorously paced action-adventure yarn.
Brad Bird, who directed the superb, traditionally animated The Iron Giant (1999), makes his CG début with The Incredibles, and doubles as a member of the voice cast, playing fashion designer Edna Mode, who delivers a very funny monologue on the uselessness of capes in superhero costumes.
The animation work is outstanding - fluid, graceful and, when Dash lives up to his name, dazzling.
