My rating: See it and add ten years to your life.

You know, there's something going on at Pixar Studios. You have to respect a publicly traded company that makes piles of money off... well, creative fun. Every movie they've made has done progressively better (except A Bug's Life than its predecessor. What they took on this time, though, seemed to be up to the greatest challenge since they started making these CG gems. There's a lot of super hero stuff going on, and the CG animation pool is an area that's growing so fast, it's starting to get a little cluttered. So, what does Pixar do? They go and make a flawless movie that really breaks some new ground.

Fans of the 1999 cult classic Mystery Men will most certainly appreciate this film. Unlike that film, which was basically about a bunch of wanna-be super heroes, this flick has some 'supers' with genuine powers. What it delves into, though, is the probable (and very funny) outcome of super heroes that save people that don't want to be saved, sue the heroes, and the like. I found this very much in the spirit of Mystery Men.

Where the thing goes from there is a new thing. Two super heroes, Mr. Incredible and ElastiGirl, have gotten married and had kids. The children, Violet and Dash, have their own super powers, but also go through typical kid stuff. Dash is super fast, and he uses his supers speed to put tacks in his teacher's chair without being seen. You can only imagine the brother-sister fights that come about when Violet uses her force field powers on her brother. Funny stuff.

The basic conflict is the only thing that's really canned and reheated... the insidious Syndrome (voiced by Jason Lee) is jealous of Mr. Incredible and, though he has no super powers, he does become the wealthy-evil-villain-with-lots-of-toys character quite well. The uplifting part of the movie, and perhaps its best quality, is that the family works together to solve the problem. I thought this was a fantastic theme, and a great message, especially for a family audience.

The journey you take along the way is the real pleasure of watching this film. The supers have to go underground because they are being sued and so forth, so Mr. Incredible, a.k.a. "Bob Parr," ends up working for an insurance company. He's frustrated, and misses the glory days. ElastiGirl (a.k.a. Helen Parr) is his wife and a mother of three. Mr. Incredible and his old pal Frozone (named for his ability to freeze stuff, not for his large hair) start freelancing, picking up some work using their old powers (and dressed in ski masks), which inevitably pulls the whole family into the caper. Along the way, we encounter Edna Mode, a superhero fashion designer. She hooks the family up with their matching costumes, and hooks the audience up with a pretty steady supply of dry, but hilarious, deadpan humor.

What fun. As animation companies have learned over the years, marketing movies to someone other than children alone, results in breakaway success. Movies like this one do what movies were originally conceived to do, I think... offer sheer fun for a couple hours. I had a good time. Heather and I laughed our yambags off. Adults will absolutely love the humor and banter, and kids will most likely remain fixated on the nonstop action and intriguing characters that Pixar has given us. Then, there will be some manchildren like myself who are practically jumping up and down in their seats because they're digging every single element.