Despicable Me

Despicable Me
Starring
Steve Carrel
Jason Segel

Introduction
Despicable Me is definitely a comical family film, filled with lots of great moments and terrific characters. However, as enjoyable as I found the film, this review may sound more critical because when you break it down, it’s actually nothing special. In short, the movie is about Super-villain wannnabe Gru who has a plan to capture the moon. In the process however, he ends up adopting three little girls. Already we can see the direction the movie will go from that simple synopsis. Visually, it’s a great movie and the dialogue is hilarious, but it does have its fallacies.

Acting
There’s not too much to pick on in the category of acting. Steve Carrel as always does a fantastic job. Carrel plays Gru and uses a Russian sounding voice for the character. His voice is terrific, if you didn’t know better, you wouldn’t think it was Carrel. This proves that Carrel definitely has a versatile voice and is as always a pleasure to watch and in this case, listen to. Carrel pulls off a character trying to be mean and tough, but deep down is a softy and he does it quite well. You can feel the emotion in a voice that could very easily go sounding emotionless, so I tip my hat to Carrel.

Jason Segel plays the character of Vector, Gru’s rival. Unlike Gru, Vector is a criminal, having stolen a pyramid and now after the moon as well. Vector is a very quirky character and his voice definitely matches the character. He can sound a bit annoying at times however, but that is also part of the character. I am glad that his screen time isn’t very much though overall, because his voice would have gotten somewhat frustrating if we had to listen to it a lot. It’s still funny though and he sounds like the nerdy and cocky fellow that he is.

What impressed me acting wise was the people who play the three kids, Margo, Edith and Agnes. Margo is played by Miranda Cosgrove who is making a real name for herself already and she’s only 17. Playing the character who is used to disappoint and is a little more mature than the other girls, she watches out for the other two, yet never getting her hopes up, especially about Gru. Cosgrove does an outstanding job.
Now here’s the really impressive part, both Edith and Agnes are played by new actors. Dana Gaier plays Edith, the not so normal girl of the bunch, having an interest in more of Gru’s stuff than the others. According to IMDB, this is Gaier’s first acting job. Not only that, but it’s vocal acting which is considerably more difficult. Her voice is top notch and her acting superb, I look forward to her acting more in the future.
Agnes as well is played by a new actor. Played by Elsie Fisher, the youngest of the group, she plays the sweet, innocent, little girl that you become attached to instantly. She above all of the other characters really bring out the emotion in the movie and if it weren’t for her, this movie would definitely be lacking.

Cinematography
I saw the film in 3D and though the 3D isn’t exactly necessary to the movie, it adds a nice charm to it. It really helps with establishing the distance (especially in the scenes that take place high up in the sky) so it helps connect you emotionally in that way, fearing that you might fall with the other characters. Unlike most 3D films, it doesn’t try to be flashy. Only at the end is there a special sequence dedicated to it being 3D just to prove they can. Fortunately, the way the movie is set up, this doesn’t feel like a cheat and blends well into the movie. It is essentially your standard animated film and so nothing really stands out. The particle systems are really nice as is their space models such as the Earth and Moon. But overall, it doesn’t present anything new or outstanding in the way of animation. The movement is well done and doesn’t feel rough, nor does it feel fake like it’s been motion captured. Each character moves according to how their character should so that helps.
The movie has a nice score which had Hans Zimmer’s hand in it. Hans Zimmer is really proving himself this summer and is probably on the way to some Oscar nominations and maybe even a win.
Editing is well done, it’s smooth and controlled. Being animated, it has the advantage of if a shot doesn’t splice well together, it can be redone at another angle and you don’t have to bring back the actors and rebuild the set and then reshoot the scene. So I would definitely expect an animated film to be top notch in its editing, which this film is. There’s a fairly standard foley job done to this film. There’s nothing outstanding about it, it didn’t really seem like they tried playing with different ways of presenting the sounds. They were good and all, just standard.

Story
Good in the other two categories, this one brings it down. It is undoubtedly a typical kids film type story with elements of Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog added to it. You can pretty much predict the entire movie right from the get-go so it doesn’t really get originality or creativity points. The story is presented well, the characters are presented well, everything fits, but it’s just a very ordinary story. You will still probably be entertained by it as long as you understand that you’ve in effect already seen it before story-wise. You and I both can probably name dozens of movies that have the almost exact same plot elements. All that is different are the characters and settings, so a little disappointing here.

Conclusion
Like I said before, it’s a fun and enjoyable movie and the 3D is amusing in it. It’s comical and will make you laugh, so it’s not boring, just not overly original. It’s very cute though and a great family film with no really deep messages to it other than “let’s all love each other”. But undoubtedly, the minions are what make the movie. Probably a marketing strategy more than anything (think of the plush toys!) the minions are downright hilarious, adding a bit of a Bugs Bunny style humour to it. But overall, a fun film, especially if you watch it with family.

7/10