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Despicable Me Movie Review

Despicable Me is a 2010 animated family comedy film produced by Illumination. It’s the first movie coming from this studio and one of their best for sure.

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“That book was accidentally destroyed maliciously“

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Gru, a criminal mastermind, adopts three orphans as pawns to carry out the biggest heist in history. His life takes an unexpected turn when the little girls see him as their potential father. This movie wears its influences on its sleeves. Obviously it channels Pixar in its heart and the ‘Monsters, Inc.’-inspired main kid relationship, but it also has Looney Tunes-inspired frantic action and goofy humor. There is even a wonderful nod to ‘Snow White’ in one moving scene that made me happy personally as I adore that classic movie.

Even if the film lacks in originality and it is inferior to another villain becoming a good guy animated flick of 2010, the highly underrated ‘Megamind’, this still remains one of the best that Illumination has ever done and by far their best effort in this particular franchise as it would only go downhill from this movie onward.

Everything here worked from the humor to its heart. The relationship between Gru and the girls was just beautiful to witness and many of their moments are undoubtedly very heartwarming and sweet. The sweetness abounds in this movie without ever becoming overly saccharine as the humor cleverly counteracts it. It’s just a perfect mix for family-friendly entertainment.

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I loved the humor. This is the movie that used the Minions perfectly. They would go on to become featured more extensively to the point where they would even get their own spin-off flick, but these are the type of characters that work best in small doses, and that is what happened here. They were used sparingly, and thus they were hilarious.

But Steve Carell’s role in this should not be underestimated as he is the heart and soul of this entire franchise and this is actually by far one of his best performances and career-best roles. Rarely would anybody say that, but I actually find him funnier here than in most of his live-action efforts. That’s because his voice is excellent and the character is written in such an amusing way with his dialogue being hilariously deadpan and his facial expressions amusingly annoyed.

Everything about Gru worked, but Vector is your standard superhero villain that is way too goofy and silly, even for this movie, though some of his scenes were quite memorable without a doubt. Dr. Nefario is quite a fun presence as well and I love Gru’s mother. She’s such a bitch. As for the girls, Agnes is clearly the cutest, Edith is the forgettable one and Margo is too old to be acting almost the same as the other two, but her interactions with Gru are the best of the bunch.

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Despicable Me features a very strong animation that is colorful and quite appealing. There is nothing artistic to be found anywhere here, but at least the movie looked great and charming. The character designs are different than usual for CGI animation as many characters are ugly, and that made Illumination different from its competition. The soundtrack is good, but way too much utilizing on the fun tunes of previous decades. The pacing is frantic, but most of the action is still terrific.