Witty, and cute, even if forgettable.

Rating: 5/10 (14 November 2010)

Despicable Me centers on a mediocre super villain named Gru (Voiced by Steve Carrell's best imitation of Bela Lugosi), a man with minions, a mad scientist to invent weapons for him, and a pet dog/fraggle. He plots to use a shrink ray so he can steal the moon, but that plan is thwarted when the shrink ray is stolen by a rival super villain, the film's overly obnoxious antagonist Vector (Voiced by Jason Segel). But hope is not lost for Gru. He adopts three orphan girls (Voiced by the alright Dana Gaier, the simply adorable Elsie Fisher, and the somewhat effective Miranda Cosgrove of iCarly fame), to sell Vector cookies, so that he can steal back the shrink ray, and complete his objective. But soon the girls start to warm Gru's cold heart, and make him realize he's a better good guy than bad.
The film's premise is solid, and it tries its best to do good with the material, and I say "tries" because it's only half-successful. It takes a lot of influence from things like Pixar films, and Looney Tunes, and at times quite trivially. Some characters feel too rushed in screen time, and are inconsistently written, changing from sympathetic, to sarcastic in the blink of an eye.
The film has a large cast that, besides Carrell and Segel, include comedic talents like Will Arnett, Russell Brand, and Kristen Wiig. Some of these characters feel annoying, and some feel like they're there just to be there, such as Gru's impossible-to-please mother, voiced by screen and stage legend Julie Andrews, who speaks in an inconsistent Hungarian accent.
The only thing that really keeps the movie on its feet is the humor, with some fine one-liners, and often delightful sight gags, none the least of which are Gru's hilarious yellow followers who steal each and every scene they're in. But not all of the humor is successful, and even if the voice cast had some strong passion for their roles, it didn't translate too well onto screen.
As far as both kids and adults go, I can't quite recommend Despicable Me because it is a good movie, and would be much MUCH quicker to suggest films like How to Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3. In the end, it's probably best to skip it.
** out of ****