A Fiendish Delight

Rating: 8/10 (10 July 2010)

Gru (voiced with faux-eastern-Euopean gravitas by Steve Carell) is a nefarious Supervillain in the midst of crisis: a younger nemesis named Vector (voiced by "Freaks and Geeks" alum Jason Segel) is stealing his fiendish thunder, his most recent acquisition being a Shrink Ray. In order to engender the good faith necessary in the bank that gives Gru loans to carry out his schemes (even Supervillains aren't immune to the bureaucratic red tape we normal citizens must contend with), he adopts three precocious orphan girls to unwittingly aid in his scheme to steal the moon, a heist so astronomical it will place him back at the top of the Supervillain ladder. That's "Despicable Me," in a nutshell. Yet the film is so richly textured (in both its exquisite animation and storytelling) that it becomes something transcendent of the usual doldrums of summer popcorn fodder. The character arcs are well-executed, the gadgets and gizmos are awesome to behold, and the eventual tenderness that seeps into Gru's dark heart is affecting without being sappy. As for Gru's squeak-uttering, cyclopean yellow "minions"--they're a riot, adding an extra layer of slapstick humor to the proceedings. With so much overuse and abuse of the 3D medium as of late (with the cynical cash-grabs of "Clash of the Titans" and "The Last Airbender" being the most high-profile), it is refreshing to see it used so well in "Despicable Me"--it is a visual feast that helps bring its underlying emotions into even sharper focus.