(Touchstone, $29.99)
MOVIE: 4 stars DISC: 4 stars

THE MOVIE: While this Pixar effort opened to mostly rave reviews, a few weepy scolds bemoaned the seeming fact that the computer animation giant, with its first movie directed by someone who wasn’t a longtime Pixar guy (Brad Bird, a veteran of The Simpsons and the brains behind the wondrous The Iron Giant), was abandoning the sweet worlds of Toy Story and Finding Nemo in favor of the loud action-adventure realm that’s standard fare in Hollywood. Only there’s nothing standard about this tale of a superhero family in a world that’s rejected superheroics only to find them needed again. Mixing antic, ingenious humor with action-adventure stuff that brings to mind classics like You Only Live Twice (Michael Giacchino’s magnificent score contains more than shades of John Barry), this movie really demands one thing: that you TURN IT UP!

THE DISC: Multiple and exhaustive extras are now de rigueur for this sort of release, and this two-disc set has all the goods you’d expect as well as a hysterical “vintage” Mr. Incredible cartoon with its own comic commentary from the characters. Great stuff.

—Glenn Kenny

Our First Impression:

A hilariously spot-on spoof that melds the superhero-family of Spy Kids with Alan Moore’s seminal postmodern graphic-novel of has-been heroes, The Watchmen. read more