The best animated feature thus far for 2010.

Rating: 10/10 (16 July 2010)

DESPICABLE ME has toppled the two giants, Pixar and DreamWorks Animation in this animated feature that is far above this year's animated feature products as we enter the mid-summer releases. Those of us who are grown-ups can forgive the predictable story since we know that we are not the primary audience for this film. Animated features are still made for children although the art form itself has long hungered after adult fare. It is quite capable of being applied to adult stories although very few Hollywood suits have yet to grasp that concept. The one exception that quickly comes to mind was the Ralph Bakshi animated films. Unfortunately, his work was illiterate and vulgar.
Designed beautifully and with whimsical cleverness the characters are matched by superior writing. Although the scenes borrow concept humor from the once great Warner Bros. animation teams, the best-known being "Termite Terrace," the presentation is continuously funny, whimsical and entertaining. Steve Carell does his usually fine comic dialog--- as Gru, the villain that we know we will grow to love. Fortunately, for those who are very familiar with this fine comic voice, he masks it with an odd European accent that sometimes sounds like Bela Lugosi on steroids.
This brings to mind having to sit through three Toy Story movies (thus far) and having to fight the image of Tom Hanks every time the character, Woody, would speak. Walt Disney was, of course, correct when he cast Adriana Caselotti as Snow White instead of the "A" listed movie singers of the time because he wanted his audience not to have to go through that painful exercise. No doubt, greedy agents have sold modern animation producers a bill of goods but the tots who go to see these films could not care less about the names behind the voices even if they knew who they were, which they do not. Known, "A" list voices needlessly pump up budgets for these films.
Above the entire picture is the most amazing fact that DESPICABLE ME comes to us from Universal Animation, which was originally cobbled together from the Sullivan-Bluth efforts and other entities less than ten years ago. Whatever happened to bring this formerly humdrum studio to life let us hope for morewe will certainly look for it.