Despicable Me

I love this movie! It was so adorable, so charming & the writing was absolutely terrific! I love the animation & the characters (including the minions) were all fantastic! A MUST WATCH!

"Now, the rest of the plan is simple. I fly to the moon. I shrink the moon. I grab the moon. I sit on the toilet."

Any animated movie that was released during 2010 is inevitably going to be compared to Toy Story 3, so let's get that out of the way, first. No, Despicable Me is not "better" than Toy Story 3. On an emotional and story-telling level, it's not nearly as profound or involving. But Despicable Me isn't trying to be profound, it's aiming for amusement and entertainment. And on those two fronts, Dreamworks has a definite success on their hands.

My favorite thing about Despicable Me is how humorous it is. This is seriously the funniest animated movie that I've seen in quite a while. It has the expected amount of jokes that will give kids (and older people, too) the giggles, as well as lots of comedy that only the grown-up crowd will appreciate. It's fun to see what will pop up next (keep your eyes open for a particularly amusing reference to a particularly un-amusing scene in The Godfather).

Despicable Me is also a vivid, bright movie that's pleasing to the eye in all the right ways. The character designs are stylized and fun, the soundtrack is a nice change of pace for this kind of film, and the pacing is excellent, with nary a dull stretch. The voice talent is great, but I will admit that most of them were pretty much unrecognizable. I wouldn't have known that Jason Segel, Kristin Wiig, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews, or Will Arnett were even involved, if not for the credits and the fact that I had read about them beforehand. Steve Carell and Jack McBrayer (in a small but hilarious part) are really the only voices that are easily recognizable. That's not a criticism, just an observation. 

So yeah, it's pretty clear that I liked this movie a lot. It reminds me most of Monsters, Inc. (a movie I absolutely love) in the way that it combines sweetness and humor in a manner that's never cloying or annoying. Watch it with your kids, watch it with your friends, watch it with your significant other, or watch it by yourself. You'll laugh, you'll cheer, you'll say "awwww", and you'll fall in love with Agnes, Edith, and Margo even faster than Gru does.

When one pyramid of Egypt is stolen, the despicable suburban villain Gru feels frustrated since he considers himself the greatest criminal mind ever. However he plans to steal the moon, in the greatest heist of history, with the support of the evil Dr. Nefario and his army of minions. Gru intends to hire a loan in the Bank of Evil (former Lehman Brothers) to build a rocket and steal the shrink weapon to reduce the size of the moon. But the banker Mr. Perkins intends to invest in the young Vector, who actually had stolen the pyramid. When Gru robs the shrink weapon, Vector steals it from him and kept the weapon in his impenetrable fortress that is protected by state of art security system. Gru sees that the orphans Margo, Edith and Agnes from Miss Hattie's Home for Girls have full access to Vector's house to sell cookies. Gru plots a scheme, adopting the three girls to use them to recover the shrink weapon from Vector. But the three little girls change the behavior of Gru and his minions.

"Despicable Me" is a sort of contemporary version of the Charles Dickens' classic novel "A Christmas Carol" and a highly entertaining animation with one of the sweetest villain ever, three adorable little girls and a group of adorable minions. The story is not corny but human, and the jokes with Bill Gates that is the source of inspiration of the nerd Vector and with the investment banking Lehman Brothers Holding Inc. that declared bankruptcy in 2008 and affected the lives of small private investors are witty. In the end, Gru is not the criminal mastermind that he supposed to be. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Meu Malvado Favorito" ("My Favorite Meanie")

As a reviewer mentioned, this year is set to be a great year of animated films, much like the previous two years. This is proved with Pixar's unmatched (touching wood) winning streak and Dreamworks' surprise turn "How To Train Your Dragon", which proceeds to continue the ever- increasing "golden years" of computer-animated films. Universal's "Despicable Me" is yet another gem in an already quite-heavy bag of diamonds.

With nice direction, the filmmakers were able to combine two quite unoriginal plots into one with ease and without force, and they managed to add wit, charm and smart humor to it as well. Not to mention heart. I have never heard of the filmmakers before, but this is a heck of a debut from two first-time animated film directors. The humor is also not too over the top, yet utterly hilarious and ingenious when they pop up. Most of the jokes had the entire audience rolling in the aisles. The three girls end up being adorable and lovable characters, as per the main character/protagonist/villain, whom you can't help but cheer on and care for, no matter what he does. Steve Carell is spot-on as Gru and he makes the role funnier than it should be, I mean his voice and humorous style is there behind the funny accent. And what Gru plots and does is beyond ridiculous and far too funny to be deemed "serious" by any cynic. Some hilarious supporting characters round out the primary cast, most notably Gru's assistant Dr. Nefarious played by Russell Brand, and I could not believe Julie Andrews was Gru's mother, I hardly recognized her voice at all! Jason Segel was hilarious as Gru's vain nemesis Vector. And let's not forget the utterly adorable and hilarious minions and their wacky antics.

Technical wise, the animation is gorgeous, bright and nicely rendered with a deft touch of simplicity to it, causing it to be not too overly glossy and polished. This makes the animation look less artificial and more fluid, and this especially shows when it comes to the practical jokes. The music score is just wonderful and suits the moods of the film as they come along. The 3D is great and used quite a number of times in the movie during many effect-driven scenes, which is very impressive considering the poor up-conversion to 3D of MANY movies of late.

Overall, this animated film is a great fun time for the kids and family to see, and even some teens will get many laughs out of it as well. This is a very adorable film, full of charm and heart, and with a funny and lighthearted storyline, and may the powers that be reward this at the box office, if the mediocre "Eclipse" isn't taking all of its viewers already. Looks like Universal's animation days are returning.

Entertainment value: 10/10

Overall: 7.5/10

Despicable Me's teasers and trailers seemed to represent a few different movies, and that's reflected by the general segregation of comedy styles that the film begins with. At the film's start, Gru (Steve Carrell) handles the dark comedy, the trio of orphans get the cutesy comedy, and the minions handle the slapstick. As the film progresses, though, these lines begin to blur, building to a strong emotional finale and a satisfyingly complete tale. (This is one of those rare non-Pixar animated films that doesn't seem destined for sequel-dom.)

The tale of rival villains isn't terribly original. Nor is the idea of a villain having his heart melted by adorable children. But the way Despicable Me blends these two ideas is just fantastic. There's humor, action, and heart -- what more could you want from an animated film?

Also notable is the way the star-studded voice cast handles their characters. While there are a ton of big names filling out the roster, most of them use accents which render them familiar but not too much so. It's a different route than many animated films take, and it's refreshing. Julie Andrews and Steve Carrell especially do well at straddling the line between their trademark voices and their characters' accents. The voice that steals the movie, however, is the adorable Elsie Fisher as Agnes. Almost every line gets either a laugh or an "Aw..." (On a related note, I love that the orphan girls are named Edith, Margo, and Agnes. I love old names for young people.)

The plot has enough twists and turns to keep things interesting, and the antics of the minions provide a nice side of fun to the proceedings. Also, their reaching contest during the credits is a fun use of 3-D that had the kids in the theater reaching for the screen.

Last year was a banner year for animation, and this year seems to be following suit. How to Train Your Dragon amazed, Toy Story 3 is one of the best animated films of all time, and Despicable Me impresses. A very pleasant surprise.