Let's get this outta the way...

The Incredibles is my favorite movie of all time. Period. I know I am not alone; there's a pretty voluminous amount of stuff on the web singing its praises. I have watched it more than a dozen times and each time, it's gotten better. Unbelievable? Well, some of you may know of a little movie called Shrek 2. My thoughts on that movie are the subject of their own post, but suffice to say, I saw it. But, unlike many, I was not particularly looking forward to it because even before the summer of 2004 had started, I had gotten all jazzed up about The Incredibles. Ever since I saw the teaser in Finding Nemo, I was hooked. And when I saw The Incredibles, it beat my impossibly high expectations. By a lot. Make no mistake: Brad Bird is a genius of not just animation, but film in general, up there with Spielberg. In fact as Bird makes more movies, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he eventually beat Spielberg in my mind. And that's no small feat: Spielberg is my current favorite director and a brilliant filmmaker by any standard.

Which brings us to our first topic: hype. It would be easy to call the above paragraph gushings from a hormone-crazed fanboy. But it is not, at least to me. It's frankly hard to get someone to change their opinion, especially regarding issues of taste. I read about people gushing about the Jimmy Newtron movie, extolling its many virtues, when the truth is: it sucks. The problem with most "art", and especially such a commercial one as film, is that you can justify any piece of crap to be good because "Art is subjective". But sometimes, someone's perception of what is good is off the mark. For example, if I claim that a good movie has to have a clunky plot, boring characters, shoddy direction, and an atrocious story, I can then legitimately call Batman & Robin a good movie. This is because the word good has no fixed meaning and I can bend it any way I want. If you like boring, story-less movies, then I can't argue when you say you like Ghostbusters 2 over Ghostbusters.

But most of you are smart enough to define a good movie as having a rich story, complex characters, excellent direction, and real depth. But where we disagree is on what defines these qualities. What one person sees as inconsistencies in a character, another can see it as depth, complexity, and subtlety. I think The Incredibles is an utterly fantastic movie in all respects: the dialogue, direction, story, production design, characters, action scenes, drama, music... If you hate this movie, and you can't, I probably won't be able to change your mind. Let's face it: humans in general do not like to admit that they're wrong. Stephen Hawking and Einstein did it, and they were talking about stuff much more important than movies. I didn't like Shrek when it came out, but lots of people did. So I watched it again and found that it does have mostly excellent content. Then again, I keep reading on how the SpongeBob SquarePants movie rocked. Well, guess what? I still hate it. And I really like the TV show! So the point, clearly, is that I am pretty good at ending up in an unexpected place when I'm allowed to. You know what? I am so indoctrinated in the public school system that I'm actually wondering how to connect all my thoughts to a thesis I haven't written and thus make a satisfying and resounding conclusion. Well, screw that.

So why that whole riff on taste? Well, first, it's fun to write about something you think you know about but really don't, and second, this is merely a defense to all the buttheads out there who think of The Incredibles as less than excellent.