I grew up on reruns of the Batman series originally shown in 1966-1968.  I loved those episodes and, as a child, I did not see how corny or campy they were.  They were just the way my Batman and Robin were.  Of course, then, an older me discovered the Dark Knight Returns mini-series and my opinions changed.

That did not mean that I started to hate on the Batman series.  I still loved it, but I could approach it in the way it was intended, as a comedic take on the Caped Crusader.

A few years ago, they released a film called Batman: Return of the Caped Crusader and it featured the returning voices of Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin.  This was awesome and I got to see this in a limited run in the theater thanks to Fathom Events.  I loved the throwback film which I thought had the perfect touch from the 1966 series.

Then, with the passing of Adam West, I heard another animated film had been finished prior to his death, with the voice talent of William Shatner as Two-Face.  I was very excited, but I didn’t hear anything else about it and it slipped my memory.

Today, while searching through Amazon for something to watch, I stumbled upon this movie and I was excited again.

Unfortunately, I just did not find it as magically nostalgic as I did with the Return of the Caped Crusaders.

Don’t get me wrong, there was still a lot of material here to enjoy and knowing it was the final performance of Adam West as Batman did give me some feels, but I had a real problem with the story and the portrayal of Two-Face.

Without spoiling, there was something that the story hinted at involving Harvey Dent and Two-Face that turned out to be just a taunt and I did not like that.  It made no sense from what we had already seen so it spoiled the movie for me.

I am also not sure that this film went campy enough.  There were parts that certainly worked but it felt like a pale comparison to the Return of the Caped Crusader.

I am not unhappy to have seen it, but I would have preferred more than what it was.

This coming fall, there is a new Halloween movie coming out in theaters.  It is taking the continuity of the first film and discarding the remaining ton of sequels and reboots that followed.  Consider it like a Halloween 2.

I had never seen the original Halloween full and all the way through so I wanted to make sure I had a chance to see it before the release in October.  Tonight, it fit into the schedule so I watched John Carpenter’s original Halloween.

Watching it, you can see what type of classic this movie would become.  One of the first slasher horror films around, Carpenter’s film has all of the things that would eventually become horror tropes and cliches.  Of course,they were not cliches at the time, but they were so effective in this movie that we got the same type of tropes again and again.

Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie is running from the slow walking Michael Myers and she falls down.  How many times did we see that in horror movies after this.  The phone cord was cut preventing her from calling the police.  She couldn’t find her keys.  The doom that comes after teenagers have sex.

Heck, I found myself yelling at Laurie to finish him off when she had him down or to tie him up.  We all know about double taps these days…although it sure looked as if Michael Myers was more than able to shake off some serious damage to keep his desire to kill.

This film set the standard for countless imitators and followers the same way that Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho did in the 1960s and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre did in the early 70s.

The Halloween score is iconic as well, written and performed by John Carpenter himself.  They may have overused the Halloween theme a bit for my tastes here, but I can understand why he did it because it certainly created a tense mood in the scenes.  I was on the edge of my seat, even though I knew the outcome of the film and which of the characters would survive.

Halloween was tense and anxiety-inducing, filling the audience with fear and it did it without the use of much if any blood.  It goes to sow that you do not need gore to have effective horror.

I am glad that I was able to get a chance to see this first film.  I have never been a huge fan of the slasher film genre, but this one is one of the most important films of the time.  Admittedly, there is little character development, but you still connect with Laurie and her plight because she is such a good person.

I am looking forward to Laurie Strode to return in the next Halloween movie in October to see where her life has taken her.

I was watching Collider Movie Talk at some point this week and someone mentioned a movie with Tom Hardy called Locke.  They were making the point that Tom Hardy was a great actor and that the trailer for the upcoming Venom trailer may not be the worst film ever because Hardy is a strong performer and, to prove it, in Locke, he was able to carry the film on his own inside a car.  It was an interesting discussion and so I went on my business.

Then tonight I was looking at Netflix and I came across the movie Locke.  It was one of those that I would not have paid much attention to unless I had heard that discussion on Movie Talk, so I pulled it up and watched it.

Locke was a fabulous film.

Tom Hardy played Ivan Locke, a happy family man and a construction manager preparing for the biggest project of his career.  However, one night, his life was thrown into chaos when he received a specific call.  A woman with whom he had a one-night-stand and had become pregnant had gone into premature labor and she was at the hospital an hour and a half away.

Locke, who had issues with an abusive/deadbeat dad growing up, was not going to make this child feel the same way he felt, so he got in his car and left his work site and started driving to the hospital.

Unfortunately, that meant that he was going to have to take care of the problems -at work, confessing his affair to his wife, with his work associate who was too much into the drink, and with the company he worked for, over the phone as he drove.

Tom Hardy spent the entire film on screen, driving his car and talking on the phone and it was riveting.  Each time the phone rang, some new horror was dropped in his lap.  His wife Katrina (Ruth Wilson) was shocked and betrayed by his confession and was not sure what to do.  His employee Donal (Andrew Scott) was thrust into more responsibility than he was used to in order to get the cement poured in the morning.  His sons, confused by the evening’s events and why their mom was crying, wanted to be watching the football game with their dad and tried to ignore what they could see happening around them.  The lonely and sad woman (Olivia Colman) who was giving birth kept calling with worries and concerns, especially after they discovered the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck.

Tom Hardy was tremendous throughout each phone call, trying desperately to stay in control and to manage every situation that appeared to him.  He could tell things were slipping away, but he stubbornly clung to the hope that he could fix things.  He also carried a monologue along inside the car with the memory of his dead father, whom he had serious anger directed towards.

Then, one of his sons had called him to tell him about the football game and as I was listening to this voice, I thought to myself, that sounds like Tom Holland.  Sure enough, in the credits, Tom Holland was listed as playing his son, Eddie.  You could see that Locke loved his children but he just could not explain to them how this happened despite their increasing knowledge that something was terribly wrong.

Add to that the fact that he had been fired by the company from Chicago, Locke had plenty of reasons to give up.  However, he was still as dedicated to seeing the job, that he had walked out on prior to a huge cement pour, get finished.

It is quite a risk putting just one actor on screen the entire time, but Tom Hardy gave probably the best performance I have seen him give as he literally and figuratively drives this movie along.  His dialogue and facial expressions were spot on and really carried the mood.  He showed the strength of this man who was slowly losing everything that had mattered to him.

I must say that the ending was a little up in the air, but I understand that you weren’t able to wrap everything up in a film like this in the 82 minute car ride.  Tom Hardy controlled each moment in the car and brought a wonderful character study together.  This was more than just a gimmick film.  It was truly well done.

I went to a 20th anniversary showing of The Big Lebowski by Fathom Events today which was the first time I have seen this movie.  I know it is one of those films that people hold up as a classic, but I never thought that it would be my piece of cake.  AM I WRONG?

Yep, I sure was.  I actually really enjoyed the movie.

I tend not to enjoy those “stoner” films or the films that encourage the use of drugs.  However, there was not that mush of that here, with it really being used more of a character thing than anything else.  Heck, the Dude spent more time drinking his White Russians than doing anything else.

And Jeff Bridges was as charming and entertaining as just about any lead character that I have ever seen. I thoroughly enjoyed his work as The Dude.

Though I was not as much of a fan of John Goodman’s character, I appreciated his commitment to the character and his performance.  He was really loud and I wondered why the Dude continued to come back to him.

The story itself is unbelievably convoluted and really is not the focus of the movie.  It is more about putting The Dude into these different situations and watching him deal with them, and that is just fine.

The dialogue is incredibly smart and witty throughout and I am sure that I missed plenty of funny lines delivered perfectly from Bridges.

The Coen Brothers followed up their Oscar nominated Fargo with this film, which did not receive as much initial success, but developed over time as a cult classic.

The biggest advantage The Big Lebowski has is that it is damn funny.  Most of the jokes land and deliver what you are wanting.  I laughed through the whole film and I had a really good time.

I love Alfred Hitchcock, but there are holes in my knowledge of Hitchcock movies so I decided to fill one of those holes today with Strangers on a Train.

Now, I knew of the storyline for years, since it came up on an episode of Castle with Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic.  Two strangers meet on a train and they decide to swap the murders of the troublesome people in their lives so there would be no motive for the murders.

Well, that was not quite the way it went in the classic movie.  In Hitchcock’s film, tennis pro Guy Haines (Farley Granger) is on a train and he is approached by Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker).  Bruno was clearly setting up Guy for his plan, being very manipulative and tricky.  The whole idea about swapping murders was made to come off as nothing more than a flippant conversation.  Guy never gave it a second thought, but clearly Bruno had done his research.

Bruno followed Guy’s wife (whom Guy wanted to divorce, but she refused to accept one) on a date to the carnival where he strangled her to death.  Soon, he approached Guy with the news of the murder and he hoped to plan what he wanted to do with his father, the intended victim Bruno wanted Guy to kill.

Guy was shocked and angry and threatened to go to the police, but Bruno said that the police would believe that they planned this together and that would make Guy an accessory.

I enjoyed this movie, but there were some glaring problems that I had with the narrative, starting with, if I were Guy, I would have gone to the police immediately and trusted that I could convince them that I was not the murderer.  The fact that Guy does not do that immediately tells us more about the weakness of his character than anything else.  He also does not “come clean” with his fiance Anne (Ruth Roman) until she figures him out.  She believed him fairly quickly after catching him in the lie which showed how much she loved him.

There were some weird scenes when Bruno tried to insinuate himself into Guy’s life, showing the skills of a stalker, more than anything else. The strangest of all of the situations was when Bruno lost control and almost accidentally strangled a socialite at a party because he was demonstrating how to murder someone and caught a glance at Anne’s sister Barbara (Patricia Hitchcock) who had a passing resemblance to the woman he murdered.  That was a strange addition to the story and really felt out of place.  Perhaps it was just to demonstrate how crazy Bruno was.

There was a lot of tension and suspense built through the film, as the scenes flashed back between Bruno on his way to the carnival and Guy playing tennis.  It may not sound like it should have worked, but it was very effective.  And the final fight on the out-of-control merry-go-round was actually very solid, even though the chances that it could actually happen would be inconceivable.

Strangers on a Train is full of anxiety and tension and, because of that, it is a lot of fun.  The performances are solid even if there are some narrative scenes that make you roll your eyes at the plausibility of them.

In this darkly black comedy, Colin Farrell starred in a film where two hitmen, after a job goes bad, are sent to Bruges, Belgium to lay low until the people in charge decide what has to be done.  While in Bruges, Ken (Brendan Gleeson) is enjoying the medieval ambiance of the city while Ray (Colin Farrell) struggles with what has happened and the uncomfortable surrounding he has found himself stuck in.

This was a hoot.  I laughed throughout the movie and truly enjoyed it.  The fellow hitman relationship between Ken and Ray was excellent and both actors brought some of the best work I have seen them do.

There is more to the movie than just the laughs though.  There is an inventiveness that is on display with the typical genre fare that is quite unexpected.  There is a deep character arc, especially for Ray as he tried to live with the tragic circumstances that he found himself in.  The film examines honor and responsibility from a bit of a warped perspective.

There is a scene with a karate chop and a dwarf that absolutely made me laugh so hard I cried.  It was a fabulously funny moment among a mockingly humorous situation.

The city of Bruges was gorgeous as a backdrop as well, though Ray never had a good word to say about it.  It brought a certain fairy tales aspect to the story, which is a joke you’ll understand once you see In Bruges.

Ralph Fiennes arrives two thirds into the movie as the big boss and I was not as fond of that character near as much, but he was a consistent threat and really kicked the action for the third act into gear.

This was not your typical hitmen movie, but it surely had all the elements of a great one.  I really enjoyed this film more than I expected.  It is currently on Netflix.

Bob Woodard (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) worked for the Washington Post during a time of great unrest in the country.  The Vietnam War was underway and President Richard Nixon was having people engage in sabotage against the Democratic party.  Watergate was not a household word at the time, but it would grow to the stature of scandal that led the President of the United States to resign, the only time in our history (so far) where a President stepped down from office in midterm.

All the President’s Men is the film based the novel written by Woodward and Bernstein detailing those times of the early 1970s when this drama was unfolding.

This was a tremendous movie, featuring two of the best actors of the day in Redford and Hoffman telling one of the most important stories of corruption and power of our time.

It is the reason why it is necessary for the United States to have a free press and why that fact is protected within the US Constitution in the very first amendment.

I was riveted through the entire film as Woodward and Bernstein ran down every clue they could find, using whatever tricks or maneuvers they had in their arsenal to confirm stories and make sure that what they were printing was not fake news (if you’ll forgive the allusion).

There were other awesome performances in the film as well.  Jason Robards (who wins an Oscar for this role)  played Ben Bradlee, executive editor of the Washington Post.  Bradlee’s support of Woodward and Bernstein is one reason why the truth was able to surface.  Hal Holbrook played Deep Throat, the ultra secret shadowy informant who provided hints and details to Woodward (in 2005 Deep Throat was revealed to be former FBI associate director Mark Felt).  Jack Warden played Harry Rosenfeld, the editor of the Post at the time.  Jane Alexander played a bookkeeper who provided vital information for Woodward and Bernstein (and she received an Oscar nomination for her role).

Watching the process of following up leads and trying to protect sources by allowing them the ability to only confirm facts was fascinating.  It was also impressive to see how the entire group worked together, despite the external pressures loaded upon the staff of the Post.

I will tell you that this entire film felt very relevant to what is happening in the world today.  There is little doubt that the country itself faces these kind of challenges and, with any luck, will come out of today’s issues as well as they did in the 1970s.  These movies featuring hard working journalists (who are not the enemy of the people) are always fascinating films and All the President’s Men is no exception.

There was a tweet late last week from John Rocha, one of the Top 10 Show hosts and film connoisseur, recommending the film starring Paul Newman as an alcoholic, down on his luck lawyer who was handed a huge case in The Verdict.  I had heard Rocha and his co-host talk about The Verdict on another show and I was interested in seeing it so I searched it out.

The Verdict is a wonderfully acted and taut story of a pregnant woman who had been given the incorrect anesthesia during a surgical procedure that led to her having brain damage and slipping forever into a coma.

Lawyer Frank Galvin (Paul Newman) turned down an initial offer of $210,000 from the Church and the hospital in Boston where the two highly respected doctors involved were on staff.  This was probably the one area where I had some problems with the film.  It is known that a lawyer is duty-bound to present any settlement offers to his/her clients before rejecting it.  In the movie, Frank rejects the offer without checking with the victim’s sister and the sister’s husband.  In fact, the couple were very mad at turning down the money, since they could have used it.  That was a major faux pas.

Frank started the case for the money, but along the way, after he went and saw the victim, he gained perspective on life and the unfairness of the situation.  Newman really played the character well, highlighting the desperation and guilt over the chance that he could lose the case.  You can see the progression of the character from an angry drunk to someone who is ready to fight.

The Verdict seems to also have something to say about the way the court process works, as the judge, defense attorney and even Frank himself are shown doing things that benefit themselves that even border on malpractice.  The Judge (Milo O’Shea) is a reprehensible figure who tanks a round of questioning by Frank because he wanted to break until the afternoon and lunch was waiting for him.  Justice was far from his mind. Then the defense attorney, a big time lawyer named Ed Concannon (James Mason), had his own dirty dealings in the case.

Charlotte Rampling, who played Laura, a woman Frank met and became intimate with but who had her own reasons, felt superfluous to the story and did not drive enough o the story to warrant her inclusion.  She did fine in what she did, but it just felt unnecessary.

The Verdict was a fascinating movie filled with flawed people and a jury system that has its bugs as well.  Newman is outstanding and the whole cast does great work.  The Verdict was a five-time Oscar nominated film, including for Best Picture, Best Actor (Newman) and Best Supporting Actor (Mason).

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A US soldier was captured during the Korean War and he is brainwashed into being a sleeper agent.  Robert Shaw (Laurence Harvey), the son of an influential family in US, is placed in a situation to make himself look like a hero to the American public.  However, agents from China and the Soviet Union had set up an American handler to try to use Shaw to infiltrate the highest levels of the government.

The Manchurian Candidate has a definitive feel of relevance for the world we live in today.  There is some scary thoughts found here.

Angela Lansbury is just brilliant in the role as the mother of Robert Shaw and the woman who is giving her brainwashed son his orders.  She is wickedly frightening here.  She is certainly not Ms. Potts or Jessica Fletcher.

Frank Sinatra played Captain Bennett Marco, one of the men Shaw “rescued” from capture during the Korean War.  Sinatra was having dreams that made him think that something had happened that was not what they remembered exactly.

The last hour of this movie was about as good as it gets.  I really enjoyed the Manchurian Candidate.  I had not seen it previous to today’s viewing and it was surprising how much it felt like it could be a story happening today.

This is a great thriller with amazing performances.  Angela Lansbury is as bad of a mother as you are going to find in the movies and a tremendous villain.  The ending is both sad and satisfying.  The Manchurian Candidate has a lot of things going for it.  If you haven’t seen it, it is worth the two hours to see it.

This weekend was the 25th anniversary release of The Sandlot, one of the great baseball films made during the 1990s.  Much like Stand By Me, the Sandlot has a group of young boys whose bond s strengthened by a common mission.  In the Sandlot, that mission is baseball.

The coming of age story can be over-the-top and fantastical at times, but the heart is clearly there and the feelings of nostalgia is obvious.

Scotty Smalls (Tom Guiry) moves into a new neighborhood which is tough as the young boy does not make friends easily.  He spends most of his time inside playing with his constructor kit.  His mom (Karen Allen) tries to get him to go outside and meet friends.  He wants to join a group of boys who play baseball, but there is a problem.  Smalls has no idea how to play.

With the help of the best player among the kids, Benny (Mike Vitar), the others eventually accept Smalls and he blends in with the group.  But when a baseball is hit from the sandlot, over the fence into the next door junkyard, the legend of The Beast is revealed.

The Sandlot is a lot of fun.  The kids do a great job with what they have to do.  Admittedly, there is not any real heavy lifting to do acting wise with the exception of Tom Guiry and Mike Vitar, but the other boys are engaging and funny.

There are some good laughs in the movie too.  The scene at the pool in particular with Wendy Peffercorn (Marley Shelton) as the object of Squints’ (Chauncey Leopardi) affection is wonderful.  As are the myriad of attempts to retrieve the Babe Ruth baseball from the clutches of The Beast.

It may not be the most perfect film ever made, but there is no denying that there is a lot of fun to be had while watching this movie.

“You’re killing me, Smalls!”

Orson Welles directed this film coming on the heels of the end of World War II that deals with the escape and pursuit of Nazi war criminals.

This film noir style movie is taut and exciting and full of strong work from Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young and Welles.

Robinson played Mr. Wilson, an investigator from the United Nations War Crimes Commission who was in search of Nazi war criminal, Franz Kindler (Orson Welles).  Kindler had escaped and had established a new identity for himself in the United States.

The only hope Wilson had was to release Kindler’s associate Meinike (Konstantin Shayne) in the hopes that he might lead the way to Kindler.  Meinike does, but Wilson loses him.

Kindler’s new identity is that of Charles Rankin, a prep school teacher who has an obsession with maintaining and repairing clocks.  Rankin was preparing to marry Mary Longstreet (Loretta Young).  Meinike stopped by their home prior to the wedding.

Meinike wanted Rankin to confess and turn himself in, but instead, Rankin strangled him and buried the body.

Things began to unravel for Rankin and he started plotting to murder Mary.

The conclusion to the film was exciting and well done as the final confrontation involved the bell tower that Rankin had been helping restore.

The film contains the first documentary footage of the Holocaust.

The first Academy Award nominated performance of Tom Hanks was in Penny Marshall’s Big.  Big was also the first ever movie with a female director to gross a domestic total of over a $100 million domestic at the box office.

This is the 30th anniversary of the release of Big and Fathom Events was celebrating today with a special presentation of Big.

Tom Hanks does a fantastic job of playing the innocence and the wide-eyed wonder of a thirteen year old boy in the body of a thirty year old man.  You completely believe that Hanks is this young boy and not just an actor pretending.

Of course, the most charming scene in the film is also the most iconic scene as Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia perform a duet on a 16 foot walk on piano of both Chopsticks and Heart & Soul.  It is such a great moment.

However, poor Elizabeth Perkins whose character basically has to fall in love with and sleep with the man-sized 13-year old kid.  You cannot deny the fact that it is a little creepy these days.  Yes she did not know about the magic of Zoltar, but it still had the perception to me not of a sweet love story, but one that may be questionable.

The film is great mainly because of Tom Hanks’ performance.  The weird relationship, the connection to the best friend, the success at work all works because of Hanks.  Big is a wonderfully fun movie that you just accept.

I like musicals.  I did not know much about West Side Story outside of the typical.  Street gangs singing and fighting with each other.

So when Fathom Events showed West Side Story, the winner of 10 Academy Awards that year, I wanted to see it.

I have to say… I was disappointed.

First, the pre-show told me that Tony was played by the same guy who played Ben Horne and Russ Tamblyn, who was Riff, played Dr. Jacoby, both in Twin Peaks.  I spent much of the movie trying to see Jacoby and Ben in the face and movements of Tony and Riff.  It was a bit of a distraction.

Secondly, I kept waiting for songs that I recognized and I was surprised that I did not know very many.

While I thought the acting was wonderful and the dancing was amazing, I had some definite problems with the movie.

I did not buy the relationship between Tony and Maria (Natalie Wood).  They met one day at a dance and then were in complete love five minutes later.  Then, Tony kills her brother in the rumble after telling her that he was going to stop it from happening.  He came back to her after, she called him a murderer, and then they had sex.  What?  She was ready to kill herself at the end of the movie over his death when she met him one day before.  Since I had trouble buying their relationship, that makes everything else in the film not work.

Rita Moreno was tremendous, but I was unbelievably uncomfortable with the dance scene that was heading towards the Jets preparing to rape her in Doc’s shop.  In today’s world with the issues of immigration, the way they spoke to her during this scene made me hate these characters.

Some of the dance/music felt like the wrong tone for what was happening on the screen.

I was really bored in the first half of the film.  I will say that, after the intermission, I enjoyed the second half better.  The rumble scene was very solid.

The music and choreography was great but I keep going back to my problem with Tony and Maria and I just could not get past it.  After one day I just can’t believe that they would be that much in love to survive Tony killing her brother.

I am glad I saw it, but, for me, West Side Story is…

Recently, there has been news of a potential remake of the 1990’s film directed by Frank Marshall and produced by Steven Spielberg called Arachnophobia.  The rumors have James Wan connected to the possible remake.  It had been literally years since I saw Arachnophobia and with it being in the news, I figured today was as good of a time as any to revisit the movie.

I have never been a huge fan of spiders, but I would not say that I am afraid of them.  I can remember a time when I turned on the faucet at the sink and a couple of harmless but ugly spiders came leaping from the drain.  I was fairly frightened by that.

Arachnophobia has different tones that it goes back and forth with throughout the run time.  It is a horror/comedy.  There are definitely frightening moments of suspense as you see the killer spiders crawling around or jumping out at people.  It is balanced with the comedy that includes the over-the-top John Goodman as exterminator Delbert McClintock.

I remembered almost nothing about this movie so watching it today was almost like watching it for the first time.  I would have watched this sometime after it came out on a VHS tape, and I am sure I only ever saw it once.  I found the movie very tense and exciting, finding ways to scare me from those creepy spiders that seemingly can be everywhere at any time.

Jeff Daniels stars as a former big city doctor who is taking over a small country doctor’s practice when people begin dropping dead.  He discovered that the deaths have one thing in common:  spider bites.

However, the chance of one spider bite being toxic enough to kill these humans was not something you would expect from a spider from California.  Little did he know that an expedition brought an unexpected guest back from the jungles of Venezuela: a formerly unknown species of deadly venomous spiders.  The arachnid hitchhiker mated with a local spider, creating a deadly version that had set off across the town to kill anyone they come in contact with.

The cast is great.  John Goodman steals the show as his offbeat exterminator.  Jeff Daniels is believable as the doctor who struggles with his own arachnophobia.  Julian Sands is the snotty professor who lead the expedition to find these creatures.  Most of the small town population were well cast, if not that important.

Arachnophobia was a good time that definitely has a lot of tension and freak out moments.  This version of the film holds up very well, but it is interesting to think about what James Wan (The Conjuring, Aquaman) might do with the premise.

With Father’s Day this weekend and the release of the long awaited sequel Incredibles 2, I thought this was the perfect chance to revisit the first Incredibles, one of Pixar’s finest animated movies.

Why Father’s Day?  Well, the Incredibles, above all else, is a story about family.  The story focuses on Mr. Incredible and his difficulties on putting his past life as a super hero behind him and how those issues put his family at risk.

Of course, Mr. Incredible is married to Elastigirl and they have three children.  Dash and Violet have both developed their super powers at this point, Dash with super speed and Violet with force fields.  The baby, Jack-Jack, is the only non-super in their family.

The story of the Incredibles is near perfection.  It is one of the best super hero stories ever told on the big screen.  Everything works so well together.  The animation, for its time, was wonderful.  The voice cast featuring Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter and Samuel L. Jackson was top notch.

The Incredibles had a definite feel of not only a super hero adventure, but a spy thriller.  Brad Bird directed this film and wound up getting Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol afterwards and he knocked it out of the park.  Much of the experience he received on The Incredibles helped him with the Tom Cruise vehicle.

The Incredibles have one of the best villains in any super hero movie.  Syndrome has a personal tie to the heroes, and you can understand his motives.  Honestly, Syndrome is like the current Pop/Geek Culture where fandom decided that their favorite thing is not as they want it so they will turn on it and try to destroy it. Star Wars is going through these issues right now after Solo and The Last Jedi.  Toxic Fandom is perfectly shown in Syndrome and it shows how far ahead of the time Brad Bird and the Incredibles actually were.

There is fantastic action.  Amazing characters with awesome characterization.  14 years before a sequel was made is a crime.  This is one of Pixar’s best films and as entertaining as you are going to find.