Superfamily.(Now Playing)(Movie Review)

If it sometimes seems that superhuman powers are required to keep your family together, the newest Pixar film, The Incredibles, knows how you feel.

The latest in a long line of excellent computer-animated films from the inventive Pixar studio (Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., A Bug's Life, Toy Story, etc.), The Incredibles follows a family of superheroes struggling not so much against world-dominating evil as against the challenges of everyday life. You know, like getting the kids together for a civil dinner, paying the bills via a dead-end job, and warding off middle-aged malaise.

Mr. Incredible, a barrel-chested do-gooder with the strength of one hundred men; his wife, Elastigirl, whose powers should be self-explanatory; and their three young children, face such everyday inanities because society has deemed them no longer valuable as superheroes. (It all starts when a would-be suicide sues Mr. Incredible for saving his life.) And so the government sends them into a witness protection program of sorts, in which they meld into society as if they were the Johnsons next door.

The Incredibles delights most during its domestic segments, as Elastigirl finds the role of homemaker to be no less frazzling than superhero life, even though her flexible arms allow her to separate her squabbling kids from two rooms away. As for Mr. Incredible--now known simply as Bob--he trudges through his daily routine, stamping insurance forms at the office and pining for the days he used to leap tall buildings in a single bound. When a mysterious woman tracks him down and recruits him for undercover superhero missions, he sees a chance to relive his youth.

As a metaphor for a mid-life crisis, The Incredibles registers on a decidedly adult level, as do most Pixar pictures. (Finding Nemo was essentially a pep talk for parents terrified at the thought of leaving their children at preschool.) After all, what other kid flick would include a line like the one given to Elastigirl when she confronts her husband's restlessness: "This, our family, is what's happening now, Bob. And you're missing it."

Not that The Incredibles is a relationship drama in ...