Funny and charming take on super villains

Rating: 9/10 (7 July 2015)

This is an animated feature produced by Illuminations Entertainment for Universal. There will be spoilers ahead:
This film features an interesting variation on the whole super villain concept. For one thing, the super heroes don't seem to exist. The story revolves around Gru, a super villain who hasn't really been terribly successful at his calling. His mother, banker and assistant take great pains to remind him of this as often as possible.
A younger super villain named Vector steals Gru's thunder (and a pyramid) causing Gru's bank loan to be called. Who knew being a super villain was so challenging? Gru has cash flow problems, a lot of employees (most of them little yellow critters called Minions) and a deadline on his next project-stealing the moon, which has been a dream of his since he was a little super villain.
Enter plot twist, namely three orphaned sisters selling cookies. Gru turns them down. Then through a series of events, he decides he needs their help getting a shrink ray from Vector, so he visits the orphanage where they live, "charms" the rather obnoxious harridan running the place into letting him adopt them (a knowledge of Spanish makes one joke particularly good) and off they go to deliver cookies to Vector.
The girls stay with Gru long enough to grow on him and for them to become fond of him in turn, until the harridan takes them back. Much of the rest of the film deals with the stealing of the moon and a race against time to get to the girls' dance recital, which Gru has promised he would attend.
Vector manages to grab the three girls, demanding Gru give him the moon in exchange. There's a thrilling rescue of the girls by Gru and Vector's fate is most satisfactory, given that he's an arrogant twit. The ending of the film is rather touching and funny. I won't spoil it here.
This film is available on DVD and Blu Ray and is well worth watching. Most recommended.