144 - The Incredibles

    After superheroes are banned, Mr. Incredible settles into a dull existence.  A new villain pulls him and his family out of retirement.
    This was also watched for primarily research purposes.  What I learned was that this was actually a pretty dull story.  It’s not terrible, but for plot purposes, it relied more heavily on action and gags rather than development.  Most of the arcs weren’t especially interesting.  There seemed to be a lot of similarities to The Fantastic Four (three of the powers are effectively identical, their team-up methods and behaviors are remarkably similar).  The laughs aren’t as strong as Pixar movies usually deliver.
    But the good thing is that it didn’t feel nearly as nakedly manipulative as Pixar’s movies usually feel.  By that standard, this is good.
    The biggest weakness that this movie has is the massive amount of time devoted to setting things up.  We get the pinch around 10 minutes in.  Then we get the end of the first act at about 35 minutes in.  Midpoint at around an hour in, end of second act around 1:30 or so.  Some material should have been shaved off.
    What this movie did teach was the value of useless gags.  There are a number of character moments that are simple gags.  Some of them are just a few seconds, some of them are much longer bits, but every movement of the core plot is paired with these.  It typically isn’t woven in, either, they stand distinct.
    It’s not a bad movie, but I can understand why Pixar fans felt like this wasn’t as strong.