What an amazing film.
I finally got a chance to watch this movie at Movie Night this week, and was simply blown away by how well done it was. The animation was flawless, and Pixar obviously understood the same basic principles that have been evident in World of Warcraft - stylized graphics make you forget that you're looking at something that's generated by a computer. The theory is that no matter how good a computer simulation of a human looks, it will always miss the real thing by enough to appear "wrong" - such "wrongness" can be easily seen in the Final Fantasy movie, which (on top of being a bad movie) tries to actually reproduce humans digitally instead of simply hinting at them.
The stylized look works marvels. The characters can do things that seem perfectly plausable in their world, which is a cartoon world, and we never have to question it.
But as with all the great Pixar movies, what make The Incredibles a winner are the simply astounding storylines, the clever dialogue, and the superb acting. It's amazing, really, and it's possibly my favorite film in recent memory - how they can manage to make something so good that it can transcend all demographics is just beyond me. I'm sure kids will love this movie, I'm sure adults will love this movie - it's difficult for me to imagine anybody who fails to love this movie. It's at turns remorseful, hopeful, exciting, hilarious... it manages to somehow superimpose the family life that we all recognize upon a family that has powers that are completely unfounded in our reality. But when the two main characters (Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl, husband and wife) start arguing about which route to take, with argumentative kids in the back, all the while barreling down a crowded highway at super-sonic speeds, it's so charming and somehow so believable that you have to imagine that these characters are more realistic than what we see in so many live action dramas.
Sadly, though the end seems to come far too quickly and leaves us praying for a sequel, none will ever be made by Pixar. The rights to this "property" will be retained by Disney, and any sequel will inevitably be befouled by their money-grubbing taint. But that's OK, really - The Incredibles is good enough to stand alone, and we'll just treat anything else Disney tries to spew at us with that name on it in the same light as Highlander 2 - to us, it never happened.