A Chuckle-Delivery Vehicle That Performs Up to Design Specs

Rating: 7/10 (15 July 2010)

Despicable Me (1:35, PG) — Other: Comedy; 2nd string; original
You remember those little green 3-eyed space aliens who came out of the pay-a-quarter grabber box in Toy Story? Well, Despicable Me comes up with a legion of similarly whimsical scene-stealers: the minions, little yellow guys shaped like time-release capsules, all of whom wear goggles over either 1 or 2 eyes and scurry cheerfully and endlessly (if not always effectively) to do the bidding of their master Gru (Steve Carell), the World's Greatest Villain, or his hench-mad-scientist Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand).
The WGV title is visually underlined by driving the biggest polluter since Mount Pinatubo but apparently determined solely by which world landmarks one has recently stolen. This dubious distinction seems to be slipping out of Gru's grasp, as most recently the Great Pyramid of Giza has been pilfered by upstart Vector (Jason Segel), a nebbishy young guy in a jumpsuit which — like everything he owns — is embellished with a giant letter "V". Gru determines to top this feat by upping the ante and stealing  the Moon!
To do this, however, he needs financing, so he returns to the place which has always backed his fiendish endeavors in the past, the Bank of Evil and its pompous but imposing director, Mr. Perkins (Will Arnett). Unbeknownst to Gru, however, Perkins is Vector's father and is secretly rigging the game so that his boy will prevail in the end.
The oi in the flyntment comes in the most innocuous form, as 3 little orphans from Miss Hattie's School for Girls — responsible oldest sister Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Geier), and unicornphile Agnes (Elsie Fisher) — appear at Vector's front door selling cookies. Vector effusively welcomes them (since he just loves coconutties), and Gru, hiding in the bushes doing recon, hatches a scheme to infiltrate his rival's headquarters. He adopts the girls, then sneaks robot cookies into the order his new wards deliver to Vector.
At this point, true to his villainous nature, he figures the girls have outlived their usefulness and tries to get rid of them. But they're really adorable, and they inveigle him into a carnival where he becomes incensed at one of the rigged games; grossly overreacts; wins the big stuffed animal for the little girls; earns their admiration, gratitude, hugs, and devotion; and loses his heart. He soon finds himself dithering over competing entries for May 26 in his appointment calendar: Swan Lake (the girls are taking ballet) or Steal the Moon.
Meanwhile, Nefario grows increasingly exasperated at his boss's loss of focus. His own reputation is on the line, too. Unfortunately, his hearing is starting to fail him, and he's been turning out noogie robots and fart guns instead of cookie robots and dart guns. And the whole movie is like that, basically a joke a minute, almost all of them winners.
This is an immensely good-natured film, with a plethora of visual gags and the occasional bone tossed to the adults (like the subtitle "formerly Lehman Brothers" under the Bank of Evil logo).
Despicable Me is also completely shallow. Everything is on the surface. There's not even as much character development as in, say, How To Train Your Dragon (another animated kid flick that had a more serious bent to it). But it never pretends to more. It's a chuckle-delivery vehicle, and it performs completely up to its design specs.
My only serious complaint was that Hans Zimmer's score featured too much loud, pervasive drum banging in the early going, but fortunately he stopped after awhile.
Story by Sergio Pablos, screenplay by Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul, direction by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud. Bravo! More, please.