Movie Review - 'Despicable Me'

Despicable Me Starring Steve Carell, Jason Segel, and Russell Brand Directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud Rated PG

Ever since he was a kid, Gru (Steve Carell) has struggled with realizing his big dreams. He wanted to be an astronaut when he was younger, but his mother was not encouraging and was consistently unimpressed. Even when he built a working rocket as a boy, mom, when she could be bothered to pay attention, was still unmoved by her son’s accomplishment. So in a way, it’s not surprising he has wound up here, as a second-rate villain trying to make his mark on the world but never going out of his way to do it. Gru has stolen the Statue of Liberty, although he’s quick to add it’s just the small one from Las Vegas. But when a rookie villain walks away with the Pyramid of Giza, Gru steps up his game, hatching a plot to steal the moon. A slightly uncomfortable mix of darker adult humor and cutesy family fare, Despicable Me has trouble aligning both parts of its personality. It clearly would like to appeal to kids, so the film slows down what could be a really fun, really interesting comedy, although it still has plenty of good moments. To get the upper hand on Vector, for example, Gru adopts a trio of young girls so they can sell his rival Girl Scout cookies and infiltrate his seemingly impenetrable compound. Some of the joy of this film is that supervillains are just an accepted way of life. Gru uses a freeze ray to cut in line at the coffee shop and Vector’s hideout isn’t hidden at all; it’s a corner lot in the suburbs. And in this world, apparently, there are no heroes, just bad guys capable of varying degrees of malfeasance and underwritten by the Bank of Evil, which, as the marquee reads, used to be known as Lehman Brothers. And that’s a joke that really works, the kind that is offset and maybe undercut by a bit too much of a family touch. Gru, as you could figure out from a mile away, becomes emotionally invested in the girls he originally adopts as pawns. As Gru, Steve Carell affects a vaguely eastern European accent. It probably doesn’t need to be good or even consistent, and that’s a plus, because it’s neither. But otherwise, it’s a decent bit of voice acting, certainly good enough to carry the film. Carell is at his best when Gru is hopelessly vexed, which is his usual state. It probably helps adult viewers that Carell is so at home as the lonesome loser, from Michael Scott in The Office to Max Smart in Get Smart. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to picture storm clouds following Gru around. The surprise is Russell Brand, following up another very solid performance in Get Him to the Greek by playing an octogenarian tech wizard who helps Gru’s imagination come to life. Why the producers would choose a 30-ish comedian not known for playing anything other than Russell Brand time after time is a mystery, but seeing his name in the credits will probably elicit more than a few double takes. Despicable Me is a smart movie that occasionally goes a tad too far in the kid-friendly direction. It is, after all, a movie about dueling supervillians. It’s demonstrably better when it’s more sarcastic, and why there’s an effort to make it soft and fluffy for children is hard to figure. A final note for parents planning to pack the mini-van for this one: You have the option of traditional 2-D theaters or the 3-D presentation at about an extra $4 per ticket. Skip the 3-D. Toy Story 3 benefited from it, but Despicable Me doesn’t really gain anything from the upgrade.

Comments

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[Harry Potter]

Cute movie, but I thought Steve Carrel's accent sounded forced. Still very good overall.