Heros are out, Villains are in

Rating: 7/10 (23 June 2011)

I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like 2010 was the year for villains. Ever since Disney released it's classic film The Incredibles, I think people took more of an interest in the villains, what makes them tick and what their true motives are. So Dreamworks saw this idea and really took advantage. They released Despicable Me which was a huge hit and not even a couple of months later we had Megamind. It seemed like the love child of The Incredibles and Despicable Me, but I went shopping a few weeks ago and found Megamind very cheap, so I figured that I would give it a buy and see if it was worth it. I watched it this morning and even though it's not a very strong animated film, I would say that it was worth the buy. I guess it's just a great year for villains, because we're not seeing them as total baddies who just want to destroy everything and everyone, but maybe they have a soft side too and wanted to be good but their looks were a little too intimidating and their powers were just a little too over the top.
Megamind is a super-intelligent alien and self-proclaimed villain of the fictional Metro City. Megamind has constantly battled and lost to his nemesis Metro Man since they both arrived on Earth as infants. On the day that Metro City dedicates a museum to Megamind and his sidekick Minion kidnap reporter Roxanne and lure Metro Man into a copper-lined room. To everyone's surprise, Metro Man is unable to escape and appears to be killed when Megamind's death ray strikes him. Megamind revels in his victory against Metro Man, but shortly after becomes depressed, his villainy having no meaning without anyone to stop him. Megamind is inspired to create a superhero by injecting a worthy target with a serum fashioned from Metro Man's DNA, granting them Metro Man's super-abilities. As Megamind is selecting his target, Roxanne sneaks into Megamind's lair; in the resulting chaos, Megamind accidentally fires the serum into Hal, Roxanne's cameraman who wasn't the brightest choice in the world. Now Megamind finds out that he may have a different destiny then just being the bad guy.
When I saw the movie Despicable Me, I have to admit that I was disappointed, even though it's a good movie, I was expecting a great one. I think since my expectations were lower with Megamind, it met up with what I was expecting to see and I think I had a little bit of a better time. Dreamworks is more aimed for an adult audience vs. the kids, not only can you tell with the jokes, but with the music. The animation is pretty great, but you can tell it was very much made for this silly 3D fad we got going on. Again, I still miss our good old hand drawn animation, I think the CGI animation is just a cop out, but I suppose I should get used to it since this 3D thing is not going away for a while.
The actors seemed to have a good time with the movie as well and really got into their characters and their voices didn't seem out of place. Another thing that I enjoyed about this film is that it brought out the inner dork in me with wondering what the Shredder from TMNT was like before he wanted to defeat the turtles or if the Joker and Batman originally played in the sandbox together when they were kids and Joker was just jealous of Bruce Wayne and all his wealth. I guess I need a life with that comment. But to end the comment, I would say that Megamind is very much worth the watch, especially if you loved Despicable Me. Villains are finally getting their due, the new millennium makes the heros out and the super villains in.
7/10