Brad Bird (1)Critiques

Bob and his wife Helen used to be among the world's greatest crime fighters, saving lives and battling evil on a daily basis. Fifteen years later, they have been forced to adopt civilian identities and retreat to the suburbs where they live "normal" lives with their three kids, Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack. Itching to get back into action, Bob gets his chance when a mysterious communication summons him to a remote island for a top secret assignment. He soon discovers that it will take a super family effort to rescue the world from total destruction.

2190

1975

A rat who can cook makes an unusual alliance with a young kitchen worker at a famous Paris restaurant.
Rated G, mild violence

Still good. Clever allusions to (I think) Dr. No (the villain's underground lair), "War of the Worlds" (the robots), "The Empire Strikes Back" (the forest chase scenes). Maybe some more to "A Series of Unfortunate Events" since the children in both form such strikingly similar groups.

The usual living-a-normal-life-while-fighting-evil predicament explored in, e.g., all the Sherlock Holmes stories, or, more recently, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from this. It was rather depressing to begin with – high-rise buildings being knocked down by a big businessman, and a rather sad group of people who really wanted to keep their place. This group includes an elderly married couple who run a café; the wife appears to have early forms of dementia. Then there’s an artist whose girlfriend has just left him, a prize-fighter who doesn’t speak to anyone, and a young pregnant woman.

The elderly man is at his wits’ end when help comes from a most unexpected source…

It’s amusing in places, the effects are quite clever for the time (1980s) and still look good even with today’s advanced sophisication. But then Steve Speilburg directed it, and this was the era of ET.

All in all, a pleasant family film.

The one review I saw of this said it was the best Mission Impossible movie so far. I don't know if I agree with that but it was pretty enjoyable. The keynote of these movies is, of course, the action. The story really doesn't matter much, except as a device to get them from one exotic locale to another. So it you're expecting a coherent story, you're in the wrong bay of the multiplex. On the other hand, if you enjoy seeing Tom Cruise being belted around (who doesn't?), hanging off impossibly tall buildings, driving fast cars faster than physics will allow, then you're in the right place.

The other hallmark of these movies is gear. This movie has plenty. If you've seen the trailers than you know the basic plot. Tom, I mean Ethan, and the IMF crew have been set up. A rather elaborate set up that involved getting the team inside the Kremlin so the bad guys could blow a hole in the side of it and blame it on the IMF. After this, they are operating on Ghost Protocol, which apparently means they have to concoct wild schemes without the help of headquarters. Isn't this the plot of every IM movie? Being without help means, apparently, having access to a railroad car, parked in Moscow, full of guns, electronic equipment, clothes, guns, computers, and guns.

We've been seeing the actors from the last Star Trek movie a lot recently. Before the film we saw a trailer for the Blu Ray edition of Colombian with Zoe Saldana (Uhura) and an upcoming movie called This Means War with Chris Pine (Kirk). This Means War looks absolutely atrocious. And Simon Pegg (Scotty) is in Ghost Protocol. Pegg is also one of the voices in The Adventures of Tintin, which we're going to see this week.

A young boy befriends a giant robot from outer space that a paranoid government agent wants to destroy.
Rated PG for fantasy action violence, language, some thematic material and smoking

A family of undercover superheroes, while trying to live the quiet suburban life, are forced into action to save the world.

Where to begin? I came in to this movie caring about the characters, and I left not caring a whit. The attitudes to women were apologetically trapped in the 1950s. It's like watching animated Mad Men. There was vivid-flashing bright light so we covered my one-year-old's face so he doesn't have an epileptic fit. Characters were not true to themselves, or reality. It seemed like no one in the family had watched the animated short, talked to the babysitter, or were aware how the Big Bad was actually destroyed in the first film, set three months earlier in-film. And that the baby had not exhibited anything since then. The Suspension of Disbelief was of epic proportions. Rewatch the first film.

Secuela de "Los increíbles". Helen tiene que liderar una campaña para que los superhéroes regresen, mientras Bob vive su vida "normal" con Violet, Dash y el bebé Jack-Jack —cuyos superpoderes descubriremos—. Su misión se va a pique cuando aparece un nuevo villano con un brillante plan que lo amenaza todo. Pero los Parr no se amedrentarán y menos teniendo a Frozone de su parte. (FILMAFFINITY)

Fast-paced, twists & turns, some humor.
Suffers from the defects of the genre, mostly the totally unrealistic deadlines and ops activities completed in hours that would realistically take weeks or months, but also the physical feats that would require "mutant" powers and bones of adamantium.
But hey, it was fun!

Just a lot of fun. Helen is called on for a campaign to get supers back and Bob has to juggle the day-to-day responsibilities of raising the family.There are complications and lots of life happening but it's good fun. Particularly Jack-Jack versus the raccoon.

The Short film Bao was quite fun as well

A wonderful film from beginning to end. Funny, charming, heartwarming, exciting, you name it. Excellent through and through.

A super-powered family forced into hiding saves the day.

4/4 (Great).

The plot is awkward, and a few scenes don't work. It's a lot of fun when it does work, though.½

Great fun, very silly, great escapism.

I knew nothing about this film. It wasn't the best thing I've ever seen but it wasn't terrible either. It ends on a note of hope and I think we could all do with that currently.½

One of the sweetest movies ever made. An elderly couple struggles to maintain their Brownstone in New York while nasty developers are trying to force them out. Help comes from an unexpected source. Feel good, funny and moving.

This is one of my all-time favorite movies. I definitely recommend this movie to anyone who loves heart-felt 80s movies.

A rat poses as a chef by controlling a human like a puppet.

I'm a fan of Pixar in general, but this one in particular just doesn't do anything for me. I mean, it's not as bad as Cars by a long shot. But there's something about the story that rubs me the wrong way; the best I can do to pin it down is to say it felt sit-com-ish. But it's funny and fast paced and kind of cute, and the animation is all kinds of good, so whatever.

A super-powered family forced into hiding saves the day.

So very much fun.

Concept: A
Story: B
Characters: A
Dialog: A
Pacing: A
Cinematography: A
Special effects/design: A
Acting: B
Music: A

Enjoyment: A plus

GPA: 3.9/4

Four secret agents hunt down a would-be nuclear terrorist.

There's some truly great action. And some not-so-great action. It's often not entirely clear why everything is happening, but that's probably just as well. I expect that if we had a chance to think about the plot, it would make about as much sense as the climax: a lengthy, brutal fist fight between an old man and a guy that can take out a room full of badasses without breaking a sweat.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: F
Dialog: D
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: C
Music: B

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.1/4½

A babysitter watches a super-powered baby.

Apparently, this consists largely of a deleted sequence from The Incredibles. It's very obvious which parts are original to the short and which are from the feature, from the difference in quality. And unlike some of these DVD-bonus-feature Pixar shorts, it doesn't really work independently from the movie.

Concept: B
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: D
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B

Enjoyment: C plus

GPA: 2.4/4

A boy befriends a giant space robot.

Sort of a less fun version of Lilo & Stitch. Or, a less emotional version of E.T..

Concept: B
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: A
Special effects/design: A
Acting: C
Music: B

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.9/4½

Very funny short about a "special" Christmas present Sam gets from his flaky, witchy mother.