The Incredibles

We went to Chunky's to see The Incredibles this afternoon. Chunky's calls itself a "Cinema Pub". It's a fun place, where you sit at a table in a comfortable chairs on wheels, and a waiter takes your order for food and drinks and brings them to you as the film starts. It's real food, too, far better than what you find at the concession stand in other theaters, and not much more expensive. With ticket prices less expensive than other theaters, it works out to be less expensive in most cases than going for dinner and a movie separately.

Chunky's is also a popular spot for kids' birthday parties. Matinee showings of children's movies at Chunky's are not always the best experience for someone who actually wants to hear the dialog... but we keep going back anyhow :-)

This was a fun film, a clever film, and the Pixar animation is marvelous. It is definitely worth seeing. Bob, Ned, Keith, and Chris have already blogged about it so I won't say much more about it on the positive side. I'll add that I do agree with Ned about the lameness of the short "Boundin'" that preceded the feature, and I agree somewhat with Keith about it being unsuitable for children under 7, but not because of the violence per se. I figure that most kids of that age in the US have already been exposed to more graphic violence on TV (live action as well as cartoon) and in video games than they'll see in this film. On the other hand, the story line of The Incredibles develops very fast, and several of the premises (lawsuits, a "superheroes relocation program", working in an insurance company but wanting to actually help people, having to move after blowing your cover) are going to leave young kids in the dust, and that means that what kids see is a lot of action and violence out of context. They'll still enjoy it, but don't let's not kid ourselves about them understanding any of the underlying themes at any meaningful level.

One last thing. I had actually not read any of the aforementioned reviews of The Incredibles (or any others) prior to seeing it. One of the reasons I didn't was that reviews sometimes identify the actors behind the voices of animated films, and that ruins the fun of playing "name that voice". If you enjoy that too, stop reading now!!!

Holly Hunter as Elastigirl (perfectly cast, IMHO, but then again she's great in everything, isn't she?) and Wallace Shawn in the bit part of Gilbert Huph (also perfectly cast) were easy to indentify. I had a suspicion about Samuel L. Jackson as Frozone, but I wasn't sure. For a while I thought I was hearing Harrison Ford as Mr. Incredible and Dennis Leary as Syndrome, but I reallty doubted it (especially about Ford) and eventually decided I was definitely wrong about that. Turned out I was right about being wrong in both cases. I knew Mr. Incredible's voice was very familiar, but I just couldn't place it and was surprised to learn in the credits that it was Craig T. Nelson. As for Syndrome, I've only seen one film from Jason Lee's resume, so I don't blame myself for not knowing his voice.