Saturday, July 20, 2013

Despicable Me (2010)

Dr Nefario: Here's the new weapon you ordered.
[Shoots minion with the fart gun]
Gru: No, no, no. I said DART gun.
 Dr Nefario: Oh yes. Cause I was wondering... under what circumstances would we use this?

CO-CO-BANANA!

Since I've written my review on Despicable Me 2 and an article of the potential third sequel of the franchise, thought I just complete it by reviewing on the first Despicable Me. Unless you can find a way to brainwash me from ever remembering anything of Despicable Me 2, the following review is written post-viewing of Despicable Me 2.

Where's Lucy?

When the Pyramid of Gaza had been stolen by a new villain Vector (Jason Segel) which made the other villains look... lame. Super-villain Gru (Steve Carell) had to conjure up a plan to steal the moon which will beat the Pyramid theft. But when his key device for his moon stealing plan, the shrink ray, gets stolen by Vector, Gru had to adopt three little girls; Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Elsie Kate Fisher) for his mission to steal back the shrink ray. Events in his life begins to take a different turn when the three girls turned his life upside down and made him realize there's more to life than just being a villain. With his help from an army of minions and an old hearing impaired doctor, will Gru be able to pull off the greatest heist in history?

If you didn't realize, Vector is trying to camoflauge the pyramid to the background of the sky...

Good computer animated films are rising and gaining credibility to be good family oriented movies that can be enjoyed by both children and adults alike. Despicable Me is one of those films. It has a good story with character development that is similar to the story of Dr Seuss' "The Grinch that stole Christmas" and another animated film Megamind,a super-villain turned good. A little cliche but it still is a good story to tell. But the real showcase of the movie are the many hilarious moments involving the yellow Minions and the parody of the stereotypical comic book and Hollywood's supervillains. I enjoyed the movie a lot. I was very much engaged to the story and to the characters and I had a good laugh at the wonderful minion moments.

Gru's Q, you can tell he's evil by his goggles.

Artistically, the design of the world is rather simple, but very effective. Minions look adorable and clearly stole the hearts of the audience around the world that we got a Minion Fever going during the release of the sequel. Some of the gadgets, Gru's lab, bombs and rockets and flying vehicle looks very much like exaggerated evil villainy designs. Vector's home, gadgets and vehicle on the other hand, looks very much like they are made by Apple... but ironically, Vector's look reminded me a lot like Bill Gates. The character and look of Dr Nefario reminded me of Pierce Brosnan James Bond's Q, just a lot more evil looking, perhaps even coming off as a mad scientist look and I love it when they made fun with his age and his hearing impairment... they came off really smart. I still love the line that Dr Nefario delivers when he realize he misheard the instruction to build the Dart gun and ended up inventing the Fart gun, "Oh yes, I was wondering... under what circumstances would we use this?" He's just so old...

Comparison?

There were so many hilarious Minions moments. I think I enjoyed all the Minions moments. They're just so cute...and evil (considering that they love weapons and evil schemes). The one moment that really stood out was when Minion Mark, Tim and Phil had a trip to the mall to buy a new toy unicorn. I love their disguises and costumes as a dad, a mum and a baby. I love it when they went their separate ways to explore the mall. I'm sold! Other moments was watching Kevin the Minion living his life being tiny after being shrunk by the shrink ray and also the moment  when you realize that one Minion had a freaking huge crown when they all decide to contribute to financing the building of the rocket. I also like Jerry the Minion going, "Say Whaat?!" after being accused by Edith for conjuring up the plan to mess up the house. Wait... Did I just mention all the Minions by name? Oh gosh.. I'm turning into a Despicable geek.

Tiny Kevin or Giant Dave? 

Overall, it's a really good animated film. I love the creativeness in the parody of your stereotype super villain, love the character designs, particularly their originality in their invention of the Minions that just took the world by storm since the film's release. They may be cute, adorable and all, but ultimately it's only as good as the story takes them. Not as brilliant as Pixar's Toy Story but this one certainly has heart and good character development. I would give this an 8 out of 10 fluffy unicorns. They're so fluffy... I'm going to DIE!

We'll probably won't be visiting this franchise again until the release of Minions in December 2014. For more despicable reviews, you can check out my review for Despicable Me 2 and my article on Despicable Me 3 by clicking the first two photos below. Thanks for reading, fellow Minion.

 Yes, that's a freaking crown...

Yes, that's a Kitchen Hand mixer at the left...

Yes, this blog is powered by all 10,400 minions...

1 comment:

Dan O. said...

I had an alright time with this one, but I will admit that it could have been a lot more joyful like the first one. Good review Charles.