Just Awesome

Rating: 8/10 (29 July 2010)

I have been known to anticipate animated movies, and with there being so many new companies getting into the animation game the selection is becoming wider. Despicable Me is an entertaining story about a not-so-evil evil scientist that tries to pull off the crime of the century by stealing the moon. The trailers told you all of that.
This movie has a lot of character to it. The funny scenes that draw you into the movie in the trailers are in the actual movie, and that is a nice surprise. The animation looks like a high-tech animated movie as opposed to trying to make everything look real. That is one of the problems I have always had with the Toy Story franchise. They look too real. There is no shame in making a cartoon look like a cartoon.
The acting in this movie, or at least the voice acting, is done very well. New-comer Russell Brand gives life to a very interesting character in Dr. Nefario. The age jokes at Nefario's expense do not seem over-bearing, and anything that leads to boogie-bots cannot be all bad. Let us not forget the dart gun either.
I like Steve Carell. He is not always given the best material ( Evan Almighty and 40 Year Old Virgin ), but he manages to turn his roles into something memorable. Carell is reaching the point where I will go see a movie just because he is in it. He is kind of the anti-Will Ferrell of the comedy business.
What steals the movie in Despicable Me are the minions. They are the little yellow one-eyed and two-eyed guys you see in the commercials and the trailers. They don't speak English, but that definitely does not lessen their effect. They are fiercely loyal to Gru (Carell's character) and they seem to take his experiments in stride. The minions even dress up and head out to a department store in one of the more memorable scenes in the movie.
The thing about this movie is that they do not always go for the one-time quick joke. There are several jokes that run throughout the movie, and that work very well. This is an entertaining movie for adults and children, it delivers entertainment worth the money you spend, it definitely does not drag itself out as new movies seem to and it is most definitely very, very fluffy. Go check this one out, you will not be disappointed.