Despicable Me Review

-by Ann Marie

I’m having a bad bad day, it’s about time that I get my way. Steam rolling whatever I see, huh despicable me. (Pharrell Williams)


Steve Carell is back on the screen as Gru, competing to become the world’s greatest villain. This might seem like a piece of cake, but for Gru it’s harder than it seems because he’s up against Vector, voiced by Jason Segel, a hotshot newcomer. The movie begins with tourists in Egypt looking at the pyramids. A family with an anxious child breaks away from his parents and climbs up a scaffolding and falls onto one of the pyramids. At the point the audience realizes the pyramid was stolen. The audience then meets Gru and his theme song plays while we follow him home. That’s when Gru learns the pyramid has been stolen and it wasn’t him. Realizing he was schooled, Gru consults with his minions, little yellow blobs that actually go by the name "minions", in his lair and talks about his plan to capture the moon. Gru goes to the bank like any good civilian or in this case villain asking for a loan, but instead is told he needs to steal a shrink ray before he can receive a loan from the bank. Unfortunately for Gru the race is on to get to the moon and steal it before Vector does.

Some of the popular voices behind the characters are Steve Carell (Get Smart) and Jason Segel. Joining those two on the screen are Julia Andrews as Gru’s Mom, Will Arnett as Mr. Perkins, Russell Brand as Dr. Nefario and many more. Everyone worked well on the screen for a children’s movie.

The editing pieces of the movie are quite simple because of the animation for the movie. They were done beautifully, no mistakes or confusion on story.

The humor throughout the movie was good for both adults and children. The simplistic humor in the movie helped lighten the story and helped movie it along. I especially liked the scene when the minions were photo copying their butt and kept holding up the picture saying butt and then giggling. Although this humor would seem a little immature, it added to the movie because these minions don’t speak English well, but know a word or two from listening to Gru or the other characters. The whole scene reminded me of how immature and at the same time adorable the minions are throughout the movie. The simplest humor makes them laugh and even after chaos happens behind them, they still laugh about the photo copy.

Despicable Me was directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, both of which played voices of the minions in the movie. Coffin also worked on Gary’s Fall back in 2003. Despicable Me is only his second movie he has directed. Renaud helped with many movies such as Horton Hears a Who! and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. However, if you watched the bonus of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs you would have seen No Time for Nuts which was his piece he directed. These two currently don’t have any other projects they are working on at this time.

I recommend this film to both adults and children. The film has humor for all ages, but is geared toward rude humor even though it’s rated PG. I also recommend this film for people who are fans of Steve Carell or Jason Segel.

© 2010 Beyond the Films.