Director: Brad Bird, US, 121min
Stars: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L. Jackson
On general release

How quickly special effects change. Where Spider-Man 2 (out on DVD this week) seemed the pinnacle of action this summer, it has already been topped by The Incredibles. And as for the long-awaited film of The Fantastic Four, they might as well stop shooting now. How can they beat the Incredible four?

There’s Mr Incredible, forbidden to fight crime and consigned to an insurance-firm desk job where, to his boss’s fury, he still can’t resist trying to help people; his wife, who despite her elastic super-powers still cannot control the size of her behind; teenage Violet who (just like Mrs Fantastic) has the traditionally feminine powers of invisibility and protective force fields; and younger brother Dash, banned from school sports lest he betray his super-speed and who complains that when people say “everyone’s special”, it really means that no one is.

The result is as profound an allegory on family life as you’ll get outside The Simpsons (on which Bird cut his teeth), allied to pop-culture satire that never descends into the cannibalistic levels of Shrek 2, and with CGI animation so good, you truly forget that it’s not live.

No wonder Pierce Brosnan has had to hand back his licence to kill; compared with the Incredibles, 007 seems very ordinary indeed.

Dominic Wells

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