OK but too much plotting without enough heart and character and, frankly, not as funny or as child friendly as it should be

Rating: Null/10 (13 July 2011)

I'm sure the recent subpar offering of Cars 2 eased their pain, but Dreamworks must feel the pain more than anyone else when Pixar give us Wall-E, Up and the like while Dreamworks give us solid animations that always seem to get close but no cigar. Reminiscent of The Incredibles (albeit in superhero theme only), Megamind unfortunately joins the ranks of "OK but no Pixar" films in my mind as despite its obvious cost, it fails to deliver on its full potential. The plot sees us joining the perspective of supervillain Megamind who has time and time again been thwarted by his opposite number (Metroman) only to escape his jail and try again.
The first most obvious problem with the film is the plotting – because there is loads of it. I'm not suggesting that it needed dumbing down but it felt like there was almost too many scenes where developments were occurring or things were being laid out and it seemed to push out other things. Specifically it pushed out time for character and heart because it lacked both of these. It is hard to describe perhaps but most of the Pixar movies seem to effortlessly bring a sense of engagement that makes you care about the characters in the film, with Megamind I was following the story but had no real investment in them. The second thing that was weak was the laughs because I was surprised by how few of them there were. I laughed enough times to justify the film as a comedy but again there seemed to be too much time where "plotting" was happening and not enough "asides" or comic aspects were put in – when they were they were funny but it was not often enough.
The plotting and the nature of the plot also limited it in its appeal to all audiences and, ironically for a cartoon, it felt like younger viewers would be the ones left out in the cold. Not only does the time spent on "things happening" push out other stuff but the plot itself is fairly dark and it isn't particularly made accessible for younger ones. The death of characters is the best example of this but there are others that were key to what was going on but would either be difficult or go over the heads of children – even my girlfriend turned to me during the film and said "this better have a happy ending" (she is guarded about such things since I upset her with the animated film 9 recently).
The film is naturally loaded with names when it comes to the cast and this tends to be the way with Dreamworks. In the lead roles I understand it but the star names go all the way down to smaller characters with barely a word to say. Ferrell and Fey cannot help but disappoint because, although their delivery is good, they are nowhere near as funny as they have been elsewhere, just not even close. Pitt seems an odd choice for a voice-only roll and indeed I can think of others who could have done a much better job with the rather hammy, clean-cut hero type. Cross on the other hand is more than welcome and has the delivery and the material with his funny support character, while Hill has character in his voice and does well also. I'm not sure though, for the value they bring, why they bothered Stiller, Simmons, Theroux and others to crowd the place with names.
Overall Megamind is a decent enough film. The plot is good in idea but lacks heart and characters to bring it alive and engage, probably in part because it has too much going on and not enough time to let us care about it. Laughs are compromised too and, while funny, it is only sporadically too and all three of the children (below 10) I know who saw this were pretty bored by it. Decent stuff but yet again one cannot help but compare to Pixar, and things like the Incredibles that simply highlight the failings of things like Megamind.