Despicable Me

Despicable Me was a 2010 animated film that was first movie to be made by Illumination studios, who are now responsible for movies with less than favourable results, like The Lorax, Hop, The Grinch, and The Secret Life of Pets. While the road downhill has not been reached for them yet now that they have found their niche in inoffensive colorful junk food type movies that do medium from a critical standpoint yet usually make big bucks at the box office, Despicable Me as the opening act was actually a pretty effective start, producing a very charming, colorful, and funny movie that is still one of their best films to this day. A longtime criminal mastermind named Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) has fallen behind in terms of diabolical schemes, which has put him at odds with others in the super villain industry, so he plans his biggest heist yet, which is to steal the moon. However, it proves tricky when a younger villain named Vector (voiced by Jason Segel) also wants the moon and unlike Gru, has the proper material to do so thanks to his father, Mr Perkins (voiced by Will Arnett) being the president of the Bank of Evil, and harbouring a resentment towards Gru for all his past failures. Gru finds his chance to overtake Vector in the form of three little orphan girls; Margo, Edith, and Agnus (voiced by Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, and Elsie Fisher) who he decides to adopt as a means of infiltrating Vector’s home. However, after spending time with them, the girls make their way into his heart and he starts to genuinely enjoy being their father, which puts him at odds with his plans and his assistant, Dr. Nefario (voiced by Russell Brand). With Vector moving his plans forward and Gru finding more joy in his new life than his life of villainy, the race is on to see which is more important to Gru; being the best villain or being the best dad. Being well received and earning $543.2 million worldwide (making it the ninth highest-grossing movie of 2010), this film thrives on its fun premise, colorful visuals, energetic humor, and warm homely charm, to create a experience that while nothing grand or epic like other popular animation studios like Disney, Pixar or DreamWorks, definitely leaves its mark with its unique presence. It balances its comedic centric narrative with a surprisingly nice familial tone that proves to be the anchor of the movie which holds its crazier goofy elements together rather nicely. While some of Illumination’s stupid elements still shine through, this is a pretty good introduction for this mishandled animation studio.

The story, which was created by Spanish animator, director and screenwriter, Sergio Pablos, is in all lamest terms, driven more for its comedic potential rather than its uniqueness. While it does technically follow a narrative surrounding a man’s fall from villainy into the more pleasant role of fatherhood, it’s not a plot that contains a lot of surprising twists or turns, but rather a series of familial and domestic situations that provide casual comedic moments and even hurdles to overcome. The premise does have good potential for comedy, almost acting like a reverse-spy set up with the focus on the villain’s agency and the variety of gadgets that come with thievery, it has that flavour of espionage amped up to the silliest levels which is used relatively effectively through the animation, quirky characters, and the moderately effective slapstick which provides a universal appeal. With this in mind, there is still a genuinely sweet subplot involving the kids and Gru becoming a family, as while the moon heist is the focus for comedy, this subplot handles itself very nicely with a set-up that had been done to death by this point (someone softening up after hanging out with kids is a pretty generic cliche). Regardless, the scenes are well-built up, the screenplay by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio effectively combines these two elements together as both sides work well when together, and its resolution is very nice and pretty touching. The film wouldn’t work nearly as well if the two elements didn’t blend so perfectly together which comes from the pretty nice directing by newcomers Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin (with both previously working as animators for other material). The two stories never clash with the other to result in a confliction of tone, smoothly bouncing back and forth with each other, and it leads to a pretty effective climax. This style of comedic centric plots, while not for everybody, does have a lot of humor and a lot of cute moments behind it. It’s not going to work for everybody as it is rather basic in nature and doesn’t do much to stand out outside of its visual style and humor, but that isn’t a bad thing when done well, and this movie does it very well.

The characters are passably done, though they work a lot more in this movie thanks to the minimal nature of the narrative. They aren’t given much history or establishment other than throwaway jokes, but that means that the audience is instantly endeared and what they lack in complexity, it makes up for in a lot of charm and goofy heart. The cast for this film feels like something of a sketch-comedy line up, with names like Steve Carell, Russell Brand, Kristen Wiig, Will Arnett, and Jason Segel populating the major roles, with even brief cameos from people like Julie Andrews, Jemaine Clement, Danny McBride, Jack McBrayer, Mindy Kaling, and Ken Jeong further proving that. With that said, most of these talents are used well and even work in this environment. Since the movie is animated, it allows for a lot of the characters to have overly exaggerated designs that give off a lot of character and also leave a memorable impression. Gru has an instantly iconic design, with his almost penguin-like structure and incredibly thin long feet, he feels like he’s presented in a fashion that would make a good majority of people instantly know who he is. He himself is likeably diabolical and passionate; it’s a character that isn’t necessarily really ‘evil’ but feels defined enough that he does seem changed come the movies end. Steve Carell also does a surprisingly good job with the voice, despite containing such a strong accent, it never becomes annoying and doesn’t even distract from the film’s more softer moments. The girls all have little traits that the audience focuses on and outside of the middle child (who actively feels like the one that everybody including the filmmakers forgets even exists due to how sparingly she’s used in this film and the ones going forward), both the oldest and the youngest sister are given enough screentime with Gru, along with housing decent voices actors to make them stand out as cute and memorable enough. The villain is unfortunately pretty stale; with a boring design, annoying voice and weak writing surrounding his lines. It’s clear that they are trying to make him pathetic and almost like this post-millennial type role, but it goes that extra step where it’s not entertainingly pathetic, it just comes off as annoying, especially when the writing isn’t good or creative enough to make that element tolerable. The minions have obviously gained traction and insane popularity from this film, even getting their own movie spin-off (which also managed to bring in solid numbers at the box office). While they do contain that element of annoyance that they would become more synonymous with (although that could just be a consequence of their overexposure nowadays), it hasn’t reached the point of them hi-jacking the film away from the main focus yet, they do have a few scenes where they are pretty funny, and their unique designs, gibberish language and their comedy being solely physical allows them to be pretty universal, which in turns makes them accessible to almost everybody.

The quality of the animation is what Illumination has always been praised for regardless of the quality of their films, and this was a pretty good first showcase as to how they would stand apart from other animation studios. The already mentioned character designs are absurdly unique looking, featuring this very angular and pointy style mixed with these oddly realistic movements and bizarre expressions that does make it feel pretty distinct. The colors are very nice and shiny, the way the film showcases and even animates the moon makes it look pretty cool anytime its showcased, there’s a lot of fun shots during the climax that make for some cool visuals, the movements have a weird expressive nature to them that definitely keeps them as cartoonish but not to the level of being overly stretchy and formless yet, and a likeable color design and style is more inviting than a harsher one for this kind of story. The writing needs to be better when the movie is this focused on its humor and thankfully, it is pretty good with enough visual and verbal gags bouncing off each other, with an added dose of cynicism making the movie all that more entertaining in certain parts (especially in a story with a villain as the lead). It’s true that every once and a while there’s a little joke that fails, but it doesn’t feel too bad as of yet. The musical score by Heitor Pereira is nice enough and features a spy-esque quality to it that feels slightly techy, but also contains enough of a suave retro flair to fit with the genre, and even most of the soundtrack, which was done by singer Pharrell Williams (whom Illumination really seems to love considering how often he’s used in their movies) has that typical modern poppy vibe that could be pretty annoying, but it’s not overdone, features pop songs that are overly annoying, and even a rap within the main theme of the film doesn’t feel too distracting.

Though looking pretty stupid on the outset, Despicable Me is a delight with charming characters, a fun concept and execution, energetic and slightly cynical humor, bright colors, and enough focus on heart and familial connection that levels out the goofier side of this premise. It can be a bit stupid and feel a little lenient on story at times, but overall, the movie’s grab with its connectable characters and cutesy heart has enough grounding that it makes the humor much more excusable by those who don’t like that style of film. It’s a movie that says it’s fun to be bad, but it’s a lot more fulfilling when you share love with others. Seeing how well they makes this bad guy likeable in his own unique way, it can only make the audience ponder ‘’how did they so badly mess up The Grinch’’.