Incredible, But Still Human
Time|June 25, 2018

THE KEY TO THE WONDERS OF BRAD BIRD’S INDISPUTABLY wonderful Pixar features—first The Incredibles, then Ratatouille and now the bold, rapturously entertaining Incredibles 2—is that he writes for cartoon characters as if they were human actors.

Stephanie Zacharek
Incredible, But Still Human

Everything those characters do, every split-second decision they make—even a misguided one—feels lived in, not drawn in. In Incredibles 2, when superhero dad Bob Parr, a.k.a. Mr. Incredible (voiced by Craig T. Nelson), is forced to stay home with the kids while his wife Helen, a.k.a. Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), enters the workforce to bring home the much-needed bacon, the five-o’clock shadow gracing his he-man lantern jaw is a kind of cartoon shorthand for exhaustion. But the weariness in his carriage— the way his big-’n’-tall physique seems deflated from within, imprisoned by plain old dad cotton when it belongs in superhero Spandex—qualifies as Method-style brilliance.

This story is from the June 25, 2018 edition of Time.

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This story is from the June 25, 2018 edition of Time.

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