The recent trend towards superhero movies has been both a good thing and a bad thing. I will most likely write an article on this later. But this movie was something that could have went straight to crap, we got lucky. I say this because comics have always had to fight the stigma that they are for kids. Since this is an animated movie and is rated for kids it will perpetuate this myth. That and the cheesy opening animation were the only things that I didn't like in this movie.
As for this movie, it was perfectly done. It was exactly what I would have wanted it to be. The characterization of each character was great. I didn't expect Mr. Incredible to act so dark when it was called for. In a real comic, the hero would have resulted to what he did in the movie. I was thinking right before that he would do something less scary since it was a kids movie, but then I was pleasantly surprised. Everything went like I expected it to go. Which was a little bit of a drag but was unavoidable; As a long time fan of the medium, I can usually figure out the major plots and twists of a movie. I will try not to spoil the movie here but if you know the medium as well as I presume that I do than you will be able to figure it out as well. But I also consider that a good thing because here in means that the movie is exactly how I want it.
The action wasn't "dumbed down" at all either. It was like this came from an actual comic book. Well, I assume it sort of did, more on that later. They all kept moving which was exciting. The villiany was cheesy either. You could tell that either a lot of research was done or that the animators were already fans. I especially liked the final battle scene.
If the animators did research or not, there are still some good comic book cliches here. The Incredibles are obviously an illusion to the Fantastic Four. This is really evident from Violet's ability to turn invisible and project a force field as well as Elasti-Girl's elasticity. Also the little things like the shot of them in a fighting stance, the shot is similar to that of many I have seen of the FF. The very last scene where the Underminer shows up reminded me of Marvel's Moleman, the first villian the FF took on. Even their new costumes have a similar design to the FF's.
I found this movie really exciting. I haven't liked a movie this much in a while. I liked it more than I liked some of the actual Comic-to Movie adaptations.