The Incredibles’ 5 Funniest (And 5 Saddest) Moments

At a time when new takes on the superhero genre are ten a penny, it’s fun to revisit Brad Bird’s The Incredibles to see what a truly fresh superhero story looks like. Bird expertly combined the relatable foibles of a suburban family with the high-stakes danger of being a superhero in telling the tale of the Parrs.

As with all Pixar movies, there’s a healthy balance of heart and humor in The Incredibles. It has moments of laugh-out-loud comedy, but it also has moments of bring-you-to-the-verge-of-tears drama. The movie resonates universally. So, here are The Incredibles’ 5 funniest and 5 saddest moments.

10 Funniest: The Incredibile dresses Mr. Incredible

After the montage of documentary-style talking heads that acts as a prologue, in the opening scene of The Incredibles, Bob Parr is on the way to his wedding. He notices some people who need help and decides that he has enough time before the ceremony to help them.

So, he presses a button on the dashboard of the Incredibile – which made for a really cool toy if you were a kid in 2004 – that starts dressing him in his superhero costume. The car drives itself as Bob is slumped back and a couple of mechanisms put the costume on over his tuxedo. It was a neat way to open the movie and introduce its unique tone.

9 Saddest: Helen sees a missile headed for her plane

Towards the climax of The Incredibles, Helen flies out to Nomanisan Island (terrific pun, by the way) to save Bob, and Dash and Violet stow themselves away on board. As they enter the airspace over Nomanisan Island, they’re immediately faced with fighter jets that are threatening to shoot them down. Before too long, the jets are firing missiles at them.

Helen pleads with them to call it off because there are children on the plane, but it’s too late. The look of horror in Helen’s eyes as she realizes her children might die with her is really heartbreaking. But luckily, she thinks on her feet, acts fast, and manages to protect her kids from the blast.

8 Funniest: “Coincidence? I think not!”

When we first meet Dash in The Incredibles, he’s in his teacher’s office with Helen, getting chewed out for leaving a thumbtack on his teacher’s chair. Dash’s teacher shows them a CCTV clip in which the thumbtack appears on his chair in the one frame where Dash is out of his seat and there’s a blur in the middle of the classroom.

Like a mad conspiracy theorist, the teacher says, “Coincidence? I think not!” Immediately, we learn that Dash has superhuman speed, and he’s a troublemaker. Helen is disappointed that Dash keeps flagrantly showing off his powers, because superpowers have been outlawed.

7 Saddest: Mr. Incredible thinks his family has been killed

Following on from the previous saddest moment, Mr. Incredible heard Helen’s radio transmission, and therefore thinks that she and his kids have perished in the explosion. He heard Helen begging the fighter pilots to stand down, mentioning that her kids were onboard – alerting Bob to the fact that his whole family was on this plane – and then he heard the plane get blown up.

Without knowing that Helen managed to escape the plane by stretching herself into a parachute, Bob was genuinely convinced that his entire family had been killed. It was a really dark moment for a Pixar movie.

6 Funniest: “You sly dog! You got me monologuing!”

The funniest moments in The Incredibles poke fun at the tropes and conventions of other superhero stories (“No capes!”), and this one is so spot-on that it practically defined the trope. Most traditional villains take a moment to explain their evil plan to the hero, and The Incredibles’ Syndrome is no different.

He explains his backstory to Mr. Incredible, tells him why he wants to destroy all superheroes, and begins to outline his scheme. In the middle of his pontificating speech, Mr. Incredible pounces at Syndrome, who freezes him in mid-air and jokes, “You sly dog! You got me monologuing!”

5 Saddest: “Fly home, Buddy. I work alone.”

They say that you should never meet your heroes. The Incredibles can attest to that, as a young Buddy Pine tries to join Mr. Incredible as his ward and is promptly shut down. This movie also teaches that maybe you shouldn’t meet the people who consider you a hero, either, because after Mr. Incredible rejects Buddy, he turns against him and it sends him down a dark path that leads to the deaths of almost every superhero.

Still, it’s pretty sad when an eager Buddy shows up in his homemade costume and declares himself “Incrediboy,” and Mr. Incredible sternly tells him, “Fly home, Buddy. I work alone.”

4 Funniest: Edna Mode previews the family’s new costumes

Anything involving Edna Mode is hilarious, but arguably her funniest scene is when she previews the new costumes she’s made for the family. She made one for Bob, so that he could carry out his mysterious assignments on Nomanisan Island in style.

But when Helen came asking about Bob’s strange behavior, Edna revealed that she had also made costumes for the rest of the family. Edna’s excitement juxtaposes brilliantly with Helen’s panic. When a flamethrower blazes Jack-Jack’s costume in a raging inferno, Edna is ecstatic and wide-eyed, while Helen is terrified by the prospect of her baby being burned alive.

3 Saddest: Bob finds out all of his superhero friends are dead

When Bob is almost killed by an Omnidroid, he manages to narrowly avoid its wrath in a cave. There, he finds the skeleton of an old superhero friend of his. He finds a clue in the cave, “KRONOS,” that hints at the password to Syndrome’s master computer.

So, Mr. Incredible returns to the base and types “KRONOS” into the computer. And then, he’s presented with a slideshow, profiling all of his superhero buddies, declaring them to be dead. Mr. Incredible is horrified to discover that, while Syndrome was testing the Omnidroids to kill him, he killed all of his friends.

2 Funniest: “Where’s my super suit!?”

Perhaps the most memorable quote from The Incredibles, Frozone’s “Where’s my super suit!?” line has become a popular meme. As Lucius Best sees a robot tearing through the streets of his city from the window of his apartment, he tries to find his Frozone costume so that he can join the fight against it.

However, he can’t find it, so he calls to his wife: “Where’s my super suit!?” They get into an argument over whether or not Lucius should go out and join in the battle because they have dinner plans: “We’ve been planning this dinner for two months!” “The public is in danger!” “My evening is in danger!”

1 Saddest: Syndrome kidnaps Jack-Jack

At the end of The Incredibles, the titular family manages to defeat the Omnidroid and save the day. But when they return home, they find that Syndrome has beaten them there, and he’s kidnapped Jack-Jack, flying off into the sky with the baby.

Bob and Helen watch helplessly from the ground, fearing that if they threw something at Syndrome, they might hurt Jack-Jack, or cause Syndrome to drop Jack-Jack from such a great height. Jack-Jack ends up saving himself with his unusual array of powers, but before then, we can feel Bob and Helen’s terror as their baby is in danger.

About The Author

Ben Sherlock
(3465 Articles Published)

Ben Sherlock is a writer, comedian, independent filmmaker, and Burt Reynolds enthusiast. He writes lists for Screen Rant and features and reviews for Game Rant. He’s currently in pre-production on his first feature (and has been for a while, because filmmaking is expensive). You can catch him performing standup at odd pubs around the UK that will give him stage time. Previously, he wrote for Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop.

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