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Aug 09, 2015
Brad Bird’s Oscar-winning animated feature has the look and feel of a Saturday morning cartoon whose candy-coloured backdrops and slapstick mayhem have been given new computerized life while keeping all those killer robots and retro rocket ships intact. The first Pixar production to actually receive a “PG” rating, presumably for violence and adult content (people die in messy ways albeit offscreen), there is a pessimistic vein just beneath the vibrant pyrotechnics and witty repartee which speaks to the new millennium’s preoccupation with tarnished heroes and the sense of skepticism which has replaced them. Not only have a generation of caped crusaders been forced into obscure desk jobs, but their special powers are proving to be of little use against corporate bosses and middle-aged spread. Not to worry however for in this world justice still triumphs, evildoers still meet their doom, and a promised sequel insures that we haven’t heard the last from Mr. and Mrs. Incredible. Samuel L. Jackson provides the voice of “Frozone”, a speed skating brother equipped with icicle rays, and Bird himself breathes life into Edna “E” Mode, the fabulously eccentric pint-sized designer of superhero tights whose manic speech and Beatles haircut proves to be one of the film’s many pleasures.