DVD Review HTF REVIEW: The Incredibles -- INCREDIBLY RECOMMENDED!!! (1 Viewer)

[RandyMathis]

Great thread!

 

[David Jay]

Wow, Incredible review, DaViD! I'm now counting the days until I can get this awesome film in my own hands to watch. And watch again. And again, ad nauseum.

And Ernest, once again, I appreciate your extensive thoughts on the film. You hit the nail on the head as usual.

Both of you guys, you're my freakin' heroes!

 

[MikeDE]

We watched this tonight (nice having an employee from Block Buster in the family who can bring them home early). The extra Mr. Incredible and Pals is an absolute riot!! It had me in stitches.

Mike

 

[Phil Carter]

I echo everyone else in saying "Thanks for the incredible review, David!" The sad thing is that many of them are wasted on me, because I have already made up my mind to purchase the DVDs in question before seeing your magnificent reviews.

Thanks as always for the hard work you put into these.

[edit: Thanks also to Ernest, whose great followup is ALSO well worth reading. ]]

cheers,
Phil

 

[Ernest Rister]

Anyone care to detail what happens in the "Jack-Jack Attack" short?

And by the way, I'm no hero. I'm like Allan-a-Dale, singing about other people's achievements, telling you about people who achieved great things, and celebrating their achievement. The people who achieved should be your heroes, not those who told you about them. I'm just a messenger service.

 

[Phil Carter]

Oh, I disagree, Ernest. Without the bards, the storytellers and singers and wordsmiths, we would have no record of our heroes' achievements.

But your point is well taken. I know I got a nice little warm glow of happiness when I saw the Frank and Ollie cameos at the end of this film.

[[Edit: Um...the post I was actually replying to seems to have inexplicably vanished. Not sure what happened there. I wasn't talking to thin air, really I wasn't.]]

cheers,
Phil

 

[Colin Jacobson]

How much detail do you want? Essentially it just shows what happened to Kari the babysitter - we hear those hints of problems in the voicemails she leaves, and Jack-Jack's abilities in the end sequence indicate what he can do. The short fills in the gaps in a most amusing way.

 

[Ernest Rister]

Michael Giacchino, you got shafted my friend. How he wasn't nominated for Original Score was a crime, he should have won for goodness sakes. Maybe a snob factor, looked him up on IMDB, and a lot of the work he previously did was for video games, but that music was good too!:S

The score for The Incredibles was my second favorite of the year, right behind John Debny's moving, powerful work on The Passion. Giacchino did great work as well, no doubts there, but it may have been hurt by its constant reference of John Barry's Bond film scores. Perhaps some members of the score committe found it too derivative of Barry's work, I don't know. It's impossible to listen to certain passages of The Incredibles and not hear strong echoes of Barry's incidental music on the Bond films.

 

[Ernest Rister]

To me, it's like saying one day animated characters will replace all actors. But it could be. Final Fantasy attempted it. Tom Hanks tried it with Polar Express.

The Polar Express is a grand experiment, and the IMAX presentation was a film experience I'm going to treasure for the rest of my life.

You guys want to know my theory as to why the main characters were mo-capped for the entire movie?

No?

Okay, I'll tell you anyway. I think early on in the pre-production process, Zemeckis realized that the majority of the film was going to have to be realized in CGI. Now, audiences today are so advanced, they can spot live-action and CGI mixtures and immediately spoit it as fake. Since it wasn't possible to solve that inherent issue, why not do what Coppola always advised -- when making a movie, always find a way to to make your weakness, your strength.

Since you had a conflict with real life conflicting with what would be an entirely produced CGI film, the best solution to unfiy the entire look of the film is to bring the live-action characters into the CGI realm as well.

That's why The Polar Express was mo-capped, and since the decision was made to go in that direction, suddenly new opportunities presented themselves. It was discovered that Tom Hanks could play multiple characters via a CGI mask and unify multiple characters within the same voice and persona, like someone reading a storybook and playing all the roles (I suppose it's too bad that, in the end, Hanks wasn't allowed to play *everybody*, that would have been a triumph deluxe).

Zemeckis made the right choice for The Polar Express, and it was a bold and daring choice, and I fervently hope that the film becomes a recurring event in IMAX theaters. I'm so proud of the American film audiences who ignored the bad buzz from film journalists and the likes of Entertainment Weekly, who called the film a dud because if its openening weekend numbers. The initial audiences told their friends and the word of mouth spread, and a film written off as a bomb in its opening weekend wound up grossing almost 8 times its opening weekend numbers. All due to word of mouth, despite the negative press.

Animation is a terrific art form and it comes in many different styles. Polar Express was not character animation, it was motion capture of live actors (hence, the rejection of the film by the animation nominating branch of the Academy Awards), but all the same, it was a terrific and brave movie, made with enormous heart and good cheer. Like The Incredibles, it was a movie I felt privileged to have seen last year.

 

[Sam Davatchi]

This thread misses some screenshots, so for your viewing pleasure:

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Cool...Sam...how long will those screen-shots be up? Can I post links to them in the actual review?

Jason...I got your phone # and I'll be giving you a call. Maybe sometime this week we can connect. My viewing last night continued to confirm my feeling that the feature film is ever-so-slightly-softer than the bonus material clips.

screenshots...

Does anybody have a recommendation for a server that can host screenshots *cheaply* or freely? It would have to take lots of hits! These HTF review-threads can get thousdands of hits per month if they're popular. I may invest in a DVD-drive if I can be convinced of a decent domain/service to host the images...

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Oh! I also should mention that after my 2nd viewing last night I've radically updated the "surround" comments in the audio section of the review...those interested should check it out...

 

[Reagan]

Great review, David.

After reading your updated review of the audio, I can't wait to hear this, as it appears that the 5.1 on this disc is exactly in line with what I think a 5.1 track should sound like in terms of the front sound stage, lfe, and use of the surrounds.

So I'm excited.

Again, great work.

-Reagan

 

[Ernest Rister]

a mature and well developed 5.1 mix isn't necessarily going to try to constantly catch your attention with distracting "effects" that don't serve the goal of the overall presentation. I'm very pleased and in no way slighting the audio on this disc for not providing a more "active" surround channel...I'm commending it.

PREACH IT, BROTHER!

Hallelujah, you just said everything I believe about surround f/x. I, too, was one of those with "heads turned sideways" listening for surround info when I got my first surround system in 1991.

Now I find excessive use of the surrounds tacky and juvenile. Rear channels should support the front stage and should only call attention to themselves when appropriate to help tell the story on screen.

 

[Neil Joseph]

Great DVD. Thanks for the review. I respected the sound mix and was glad when it got the oscar for that and best animated film too.

 

[Brandon Conway]

DaViD - Try http://www.imagestation.com/

 

[Sam Davatchi]

 

[Sam Davatchi]

DaViD, yes go ahead. If you mean copy them on another server then there is absolutely no problem. If you mean link directly to the files on my web page, you can try it. Normally there shouldn’t be any problem. If something comes up I will tell you.

 

[DavidBL]

Actually, I seem to recall one very important "parachute" escape a split second before the missile hits... but then the rest of the movie wouldn't have been too much fun, would it?

Can't wait to get this one next week.

 

[Jassen M. West]

Actually they didn't jump before the plane got hit, they were blown out of the plane by the missle.