Film Review with Robert Mann – Despicable Me

19th October 2010

Despicable Me 3D ****
Despicable Me 2D ***½

First, there was Walt Disney Animation Studios, then there was Pixar and DreamWorks Animation, then Blue Sky Studios and Sony Pictures Animation followed and now, witness if you will, the birth of what already looks to be the sixth major Hollywood animation studio – Illumination Entertainment.

Founded by Chris Meledandri, formerly of Blue Sky and executive producer of ‘Ice Age’, Ice Age 2 and Horton Hears A Who!, Illumination has come out of nowhere to take the animation world by storm with their first ever film, Despicable Me, being a huge hit at the US box office, even outgrossing DreamWorks’ Shrek Forever After there. The first of this year’s double whammy of supervillain themed 3D computer animated features, the second being DreamWorks’ Megamind out in December, Despicable Me is a film that has performed well simply because audiences like it and why wouldn’t they – this is a film that has a fun if not entirely original concept, cute if not groundbreaking animation, funny if not boundary pushing humour and an impressive voice including Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews, Will Arnett, Kristen Wiig, Miranda Cosgrove, Jack McBrayer and Danny McBride. There’s certainly nothing despicable about the quality of family entertainment on offer here.

In a happy suburban neighbourhood surrounded by white picket fences with flowering rose bushes, sits a black house with a dead lawn. Unbeknownst to the neighbours, hidden beneath this home is a vast secret hideout. Surrounded by a small army of minions and his aging scientist associate Dr. Nefario (voiced by Russell Brand), hapless supervillain Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) is planning the biggest heist in the history of the world – he is going to steal the Moon, if he can first defeat a rival who stands in his way – the younger, more successful supervillain Vector (voiced by Jason Segel) – that is. Gru delights in all things wicked and, armed with his arsenal of shrink rays, freeze rays, and battle-ready vehicles for land and air, he has his sights set firmly on achieving his impossible sounding goal. Until the day he encounters the immense will of three little orphaned girls who look at him and see something that no one else has ever seen: a potential Dad. The world’s greatest villain has just met his greatest challenge: three little girls named Margo (voiced by Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (voiced by Dana Gaier) and Agnes (voiced by Elsie Fisher). “Just because he’s a bad guy it doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy.”

For Illumination Entertainment, Despicable Me is a very good if not wholly remarkable first entry into the computer animation game. The animation is certainly not groundbreaking and doesn’t attempt anything that we haven’t seen before but, with its cartoony as opposed to photo-realistic look, it has more than enough texture and detail to still impress and is definitely very cute, colourful and charming in its look and feel. French directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud do bring a bit of distinctive flare to proceedings, though, something which is evident in the design of the many cool supervillain gadgets, weapons, vehicles and lairs and also the characters, in particular the Minions who are totally adorable. In 3D the animation is even more spectacular still, the extra dimension really being put to some nifty use here. While not a lot comes out of the screen, the sight of a rocket poking its nose out of the screen is very impressive and in one scene set aboard a rollercoaster, the 3D literally turns the movie into a rollercoaster ride, it almost feeling like we are really on the rollercoaster along with the characters. Elsewhere, a stunning aerial dogfight is also enhanced considerably by being in 3D. So, visually the film is superb and the 3D is of excellent quality but what about the other aspects of the film? Sadly, while the visuals are strong and show substantial ability on the part of the filmmakers, the writing is rather lacking. The invention of an entire language for the Minions to speak is an impressive if rather redundant achievement and there is heart to spare in the story but the plot is lacking surprises and will be entirely predictable to anyone but the youngest of viewers, not that they would care anyway. Additionally, the humour is a bit hit and miss, many and gags and lines making for laugh out loud moments but the film not managing to be consistently laugh out loud funny for the entire duration. Also, the humour is largely of the unsophisticated slapstick variety, guaranteed to appease children but not necessarily older viewers, although there are a few smart gags for accompanying adults, ones that will be meaningless to kids but hilarious to grown-ups, one of the best being in a scene where Gru enters the Bank of Evil and beneath the sign it reads “Formerly Lehman Brothers”. Unfortunately, the writers fail to deliver much in the way of dialogue with the actors not being given anything memorable to say that would raise their performances to the next level. It’s a shame because the vocals themselves are quite excellent, particularly those of Steve Carell, Russell Brand and Jason Segel. At the very least, however, Carell helps to make Gru a very lovable supervillain and an almost unrecognisable Brand proves very amusing. So, all in all, Despicable Me is a very cute debut for the fledgling animation studio but one that shows that they still have a lot of work to do on the writing side of things before they can really stand up to the big boys of the animation world. Not in Pixar’s league then but a solid first effort for Illumination and one that shows they certainly do have what it takes.

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Review by Robert Mann BA (Hons)

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