The villain becomes the hero

Rating: 8/10 (8 March 2012)

Superheroes are all the rage these days, comic books are incredibly popular and since 2000 there has not been a year where there no tent pole film that is not a superhero film. In 2008 we got a superhero parody in the form Hancock but ended up becoming more like an action blockbuster. Dreamworks have also attempted an superhero comedy in the form of animation with Megamind.
Megamind (Will Ferrell) is a blue, super-intelligent alien send to Earth as his home planet is sucked into a black hole. His archrival Metro Man (Brad Pitt) home planet also suffers the same fate. Both have very different upbringings, Metro Man growing up in wealth, luxury and always the golden boy, Megamind ended up in a prison of criminally gifted and because he is unable to impress of people ends up becoming a villain. In the city of Metro City (or Metrocity to Megamind) they have elaborate battles, with Metro Man being hailed as the hero. But one day Megamind some how won, killing Metro Man. The problem is that Metro Man had no plan to what to do afterwards and ends up depressed because he has no one to battle with. Megamind decides to create a new hero to battle with, making Titan (Jonah Hill). But Megamind also starts to fall for reporter Lois Lane, I mean Roxanne Ritchie (Tina Fey).
Like most Dreamworks films the animation is excellent and the action sequence with its camera movements were exciting. It is an action packed, inventive and will please people of all ages. Director Tom McGrath made sure that Megamind zipped along at a very quick pace and when the score did make some of the moments truly epic.
There was some good ideas in Megamind, like Megamind become evil because of his surrounding and that all good in his world is taken by someone else. It is the classic nature vs. nurture argument and there were ideas like the villain actually needs a hero to challenge them. It is like The Joker in The Dark Knight where he is only happy and motivated to do anything if Batman is there to challenge and what would a villain do if they actually win? What would their post victory strategy be? But the Megamind is a missed opportunity because instead of trying parody superheroes, they made a more physical, slapstick heavy comedy. There were some funny jokes, I did laugh but I wanted more verbal jokes and less of Megamind and Minion getting hurt. I wanted more observation humour, picking at holes that might happen in comic book and Saturday Morning Cartoons, which this film was good at.
There is a recurring joke that Megamind can not pronounce some words, I thought it was more a pointless quirk then a funny joke and I personally do not like Jonah Hill: I do not think he is very funny and his performance was pretty weak. I also thought the parody vision of Marlon Brando's version of Jol-El was unfunny, poorly written and just felt very forced by Ferrell.
The similarly themed The Incredibles is a much better film, but Megamind is an entertaining enough film, especially for children who enjoy superheroes.
7.5/10