Despicable Me is the first film from Illumination Entertainment, Universal’s new animation division headed by Chris Meledandri, the former president of Fox Animation. It’s also the first supervillain-centric movie of the year with Dreamworks’ Megamind coming out in November. Despicable Me was co-directed by European animators Pierre Coffin & Chris Renaud from a script by Ken Daurio & Cinco Paul who previously wrote Horton Hears a Who and The Santa Clause 2.
Steve Carell adopts an indiscernible Slavic accent to voice Gru, a criminal mastermind who considers himself the world’s number one bad guy. In his employ are an elderly inventor named Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand) and an army of Minions, diminutive creatures who look like Oompa Loompas crossbred with Twinkies. With their assistance, Gru devises a scheme to steal a shrink ray in order to hijack the moon and hold it for ransom. More importantly, Gru hopes to finally impress his hard to please mother, played by Julie Andrews in anti-Julie Andrews mode. Gru’s plan is derailed when the Bank of Evil refuses him a loan and the shrink ray is stolen out from under him by the nerdy Vector (Jason Segel). A dweeb with a bowl cut and an orange track suit, Vector is the new number one whose fortress is impenetrable.
Meanwhile at the orphanage for girls, three adorable little moppets named Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier), and Agnes (Elsie Fisher) sell cookies door-to-door for the stern Miss Hattie (voiced by Kristen Wiig, modeled after Edie McClurg). Noticing they can enter Vector’s domain uninhibited, Gru adopts them and before you know it, his icy exterior is melted away.
Despicable Me isn’t the type of multi-layered film that Pixar has mastered. It is fairly one-dimensional, but that one dimension is incredibly entertaining. The movie goes for the gusto as much as possible. If they’re going to have three cute, little girls, they’re going to make them as cute as humanly possible. The same can be said for the movie’s use of 3D, putting the audience on a rollercoaster and throwing various objects at the screen.
Is it as good as Toy Story 3 or How to Train Your Dragon? No, but Despicable Me is well worth seeing on a big 3D screen.
Rating: ***
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