Moi, moche et méchant

Gru (Steve Carell) is a horrible villain. Horrible as in he's not that good at it. He's petty. And when he is overtaken by another villain, he finds that he's not up to taking on Vector (Jason Segel). When he couldn't break into Vector's home, he notice 3 orphans selling cookies got in. So what's a respectable villain's suppose to do? Adopt them of course as part of an evil plan.

Gru is a weird character to like, and it's not that much fun to watch at first. His minions help a lot. Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand) is also good. But it's the 3 orphans causing all kinds of problem that makes it all alright. It's pretty good animation work. And there's a good story of how a bad guy learn to love. It has its funny moments and it has the minions.

I heard that this movie was very good, and after seeing seeing it myself, I have to say I heartily concur. While not my favourite film of the year, and the film never tries to be that, Despicable Me is cute and wonderfully inventive. While it could have been a little longer, what made Despicable Me work was a number of things. The animation for starters is stunning, I liked the colours and character designs but it was the backgrounds and retro-futurist design that blew me away, while the gadgetry is ingenious.

The music fits very well with the film and is memorable without being overly ambitious or simplistic, the story is ceaselessly inventive and fast paced with a surprisingly clever subplot about the importance of family. The characters also add a lot, Gru is wonderfully zany especially and I found it impossible not to fall in love with his minions, they are so cute. But my favourite assets of Despicable Me are the humour and the voice cast. The writing is just excellent, it was so funny and incredibly smart without feeling too much, while the voice work is exemplary especially from Steve Carell whose brilliant vocals add a lot to the film's success.

Overall, a truly great film with a lot to like. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Despicable Me's teasers and trailers seemed to represent a few different movies, and that's reflected by the general segregation of comedy styles that the film begins with. At the film's start, Gru (Steve Carrell) handles the dark comedy, the trio of orphans get the cutesy comedy, and the minions handle the slapstick. As the film progresses, though, these lines begin to blur, building to a strong emotional finale and a satisfyingly complete tale. (This is one of those rare non-Pixar animated films that doesn't seem destined for sequel-dom.)

The tale of rival villains isn't terribly original. Nor is the idea of a villain having his heart melted by adorable children. But the way Despicable Me blends these two ideas is just fantastic. There's humor, action, and heart -- what more could you want from an animated film?

Also notable is the way the star-studded voice cast handles their characters. While there are a ton of big names filling out the roster, most of them use accents which render them familiar but not too much so. It's a different route than many animated films take, and it's refreshing. Julie Andrews and Steve Carrell especially do well at straddling the line between their trademark voices and their characters' accents. The voice that steals the movie, however, is the adorable Elsie Fisher as Agnes. Almost every line gets either a laugh or an "Aw..." (On a related note, I love that the orphan girls are named Edith, Margo, and Agnes. I love old names for young people.)

The plot has enough twists and turns to keep things interesting, and the antics of the minions provide a nice side of fun to the proceedings. Also, their reaching contest during the credits is a fun use of 3-D that had the kids in the theater reaching for the screen.

Last year was a banner year for animation, and this year seems to be following suit. How to Train Your Dragon amazed, Toy Story 3 is one of the best animated films of all time, and Despicable Me impresses. A very pleasant surprise.

"Now, the rest of the plan is simple. I fly to the moon. I shrink the moon. I grab the moon. I sit on the toilet."

Any animated movie that was released during 2010 is inevitably going to be compared to Toy Story 3, so let's get that out of the way, first. No, Despicable Me is not "better" than Toy Story 3. On an emotional and story-telling level, it's not nearly as profound or involving. But Despicable Me isn't trying to be profound, it's aiming for amusement and entertainment. And on those two fronts, Dreamworks has a definite success on their hands.

My favorite thing about Despicable Me is how humorous it is. This is seriously the funniest animated movie that I've seen in quite a while. It has the expected amount of jokes that will give kids (and older people, too) the giggles, as well as lots of comedy that only the grown-up crowd will appreciate. It's fun to see what will pop up next (keep your eyes open for a particularly amusing reference to a particularly un-amusing scene in The Godfather).

Despicable Me is also a vivid, bright movie that's pleasing to the eye in all the right ways. The character designs are stylized and fun, the soundtrack is a nice change of pace for this kind of film, and the pacing is excellent, with nary a dull stretch. The voice talent is great, but I will admit that most of them were pretty much unrecognizable. I wouldn't have known that Jason Segel, Kristin Wiig, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews, or Will Arnett were even involved, if not for the credits and the fact that I had read about them beforehand. Steve Carell and Jack McBrayer (in a small but hilarious part) are really the only voices that are easily recognizable. That's not a criticism, just an observation. 

So yeah, it's pretty clear that I liked this movie a lot. It reminds me most of Monsters, Inc. (a movie I absolutely love) in the way that it combines sweetness and humor in a manner that's never cloying or annoying. Watch it with your kids, watch it with your friends, watch it with your significant other, or watch it by yourself. You'll laugh, you'll cheer, you'll say "awwww", and you'll fall in love with Agnes, Edith, and Margo even faster than Gru does.

I love this movie! It was so adorable, so charming & the writing was absolutely terrific! I love the animation & the characters (including the minions) were all fantastic! A MUST WATCH!