The kids will enjoy it, and so will you

Rating: 8/10 (22 October 2010)

I probably don't need to explain that villainous Gru, annoyed that rival Vector is in the process of outvillaining him, adopts 3 orphan girls as part of a masterplan to regain the ascendancy, only to find that the girls turn him into a softie.
This CGI 3D animated feature is daft, charming, and very funny. It manages to have its cake and eat it, the cake in question being real vs fantasy - Gru lives in a variation of a suburban house, drives his villainmobile around suburban streets and, in many ways, lives a completely conventional life, but he also freeze-rays people in the coffee shop, has an enormous secret laboratory under his house, and is assisted by a host of small yellow non-human minions.
The plot serves two purposes. It is a vehicle on which to hang a number of gags (most of which greatly pleased the young audience in the cinema - there is no question that this movie works very well with its target audience). And it delivers a gently sentimental message in a fairly non-glutinous way.
The visuals are very good. Character design is excellent, especially the girls and the minions. Voice characterisation is solid with, again, the girls and the minions standing out, although Steve Carell's Germanic/Russian Gru is also good fun. The 3D is occasionally effective but mostly irrelevant, although the end credits sequence, where various minions vie with each other to get closest to the camera, is well done and very funny.