The Kidd Vs. Despicable Me
It’s almost getting tiresome to state how disappointing this summer movie season has been. As each new below-average film graces The Kidd with its mediocrity, it becomes just another title on the growing list of disappointments that have filled up weeks on my calendar since I flipped to the month of May. But, for all the movies that have wasted precious hours of my life that I will never get back, there has been one consistently strong area that has provided hope from the doldrums of the Hollywood dreck that keeps getting shoveled our way lately – animated films. For some reason, the studios refuse to allow any creative or original idea to penetrate the realm of live-action movies. Luckily for us, it’s been the animated pictures that have gotten risky, taking chances that audiences want to see fresh new stories that actually have something to say rather than mindless big-budget blockbusters that seem to recycle the same elements from about 15 other movies we’ve seen before. The only credit I could give SHREK FOREVER AFTER is that it was better than the 3rd movie in the series, which isn’t much praise at all, but 2 of the best films I’ve experienced this year have been animated – TOY STORY 3 and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON. Therefore, I had high hopes for Universal’s DESPICABLE ME, optimistic that the positive track record of the animated world would touch this film as well. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for those high hopes to be quickly dashed.
In a perfect world, the idea of a movie following a villain as he does battle with another villain in the battle for villain supremacy would make for one helluva story. 2 guys matching evil wits to see who can come out on top as the worst person ever? How can you go wrong with that? The formula of good vs. evil has been done time and time again… but evil vs. evil? That’s a new one. But that’s not what we get. Not at all. Instead, we get a rather uninspired and flat movie that feels the need to soften an interesting concept by incorporating orphan children who ultimately change the outlook of one of our villains, transforming him into that good guy we were hoping this movie would avoid. Yep, it’s the old melt-the-ice-cold-heart routine, but used between characters that you never really connect with as a unit, rendering the whole movie as one giant cliche, but a cliche that doesn’t even manage to work all that well.
From the opening scene of DESPICABLE ME, you get the feeling that you’re not in for anything special. Maybe it’s because, if you happened to catch the very first trailer for the movie, you saw the beginning of the movie… in its entirety. Yep, the entire scene with the little fat kid falling on an inflated Egyptian pyramid that was somehow stolen…? That’s the first 3 minutes of the movie, which might have been funny had I been seeing this for the first time, but I had seen it already, and, as a result, didn’t work nearly as well the second time around. In the overall context of the film, this opening only serves to acknowledge that anything is capable of being stolen, regardless of size, but, as for establishing our villains, it isn’t effective at all, especially when the villain who can lay claim to robbing the pyramid is treated as an afterthought for most of the movie.
From there, we get to meet our protagonist, a villain by the name of Gru. Gru’s the kind of guy that lives in the darkest house on an otherwise colorful block, who takes joy in making balloon animals for small children just so he can pop them in their faces, and who’ll bust out his freeze ray in order to skip to the front of the line at his neighborhood Starbucks. However, we never get the sense that Gru is truly evil, which is a problem, because of how “despicable” the title character is supposed to be. We constantly get the sense that he is one puppy, one long-distance phone company commercial away from going soft on us, and that makes it hard to buy into his evil plots and schemes, because of the inevitable waiting game that revolves around when Gru will switch from bad to good.
Gru also becomes a distraction to watch at points, due to the character being voiced by Steve Carell. This isn’t Steve Carell just happening to be the voice of Gru. This is Steve Carell playing Steve Carell playing Gru. As a result, Gru becomes the product of a forced accent paired together with some forced attempts at humor (because, if you get Steve Carell, you might as well hope he does something funny), but none of it generates any laughs. Nothing flows smoothly in DESPICABLE ME’s beats or jokes, almost as if writers Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul came up with what they thought were hilarious lines or bits but then had to figure out where they could jam them in order to get them in the final cut.
But Gru is going to need something to do, if there’s going to be an attempt to make a movie around him, so he decides to hatch a plan to steal the moon. Why? Just because. And that’ll put him atop the super-villains’ unofficial rankings, where the rookie villain Vector now sits, having been the mastermind who stole the pyramids at the start. He’ll have to get a shrink ray and build a rocket to get into space in order to accomplish this task, but, after Vector is able to undercut him for the shrink ray, Gru needs to come up with a plan to get it back, or he’s shit out of luck.
Enter the kids… because that’s what every movie needs – a bunch of kids to tag along and get in the way and ask questions in a fairly adult premise. I realize that this is a children’s movie, but how childish can a movie that pits 2 villains against each other really be? Why is there this need to always add kids to the mix in order to complicate things? Is there someone who thinks it’s funny to throw 1 kid, let alone 3, into these scenarios, because the hijinks are that side-splitting, that knee-slapping? Overlooking the repetition of the opening scene, we could have been on our way to a pretty good movie had DESPICABLE ME stayed on track, being about 2 bad dudes trying to be… well, more despicable than the other. Nope… not even close.
3 orphans from Miss Hattie’s School for Girls who go around selling cookies for their headmaster (or else risk time in the Box of Shame) become part of Gru’s plans, as he needs them to deliver boxes filled with cookie robots to infiltrate Vector’s lair in his quest to recover the shrink. Of course, during their time together, Gru comes around on the trio, caring for them more and more as he spends time with them, going from putting out dog dishes filled with candy and water for their food and drink and laying some newspaper for their “pee pee and poo poo” to winning them fluffy bunnies at an amusement park, getting his face painted, and rushing back from his evil deeds in order to attend a dance recital.
The children – Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier), and Agnes (Elsie Fisher) – couldn’t be more out of place in this movie, using the orphan background in order to land instant sympathy for them. But the problem is that, while the orphanage is painted to be the place you wouldn’t want to be under any circumstances, Gru’s house doesn’t come across any better until he finally makes his sudden turn that we can see coming a mile away. He doesn’t want them to touch anything. He doesn’t spend any time with them. He barely acknowledges their existence or presence, and he shows them no affection whatsoever, not only when it would help get them to do exactly what he wants. The only reason he even tries to replace the stuffed animal one of his weapons disintegrated is because it’ll mean the youngest of the girls will shut up and stop crying. The orphanage may be bad, but living with Gru is just as bad, so is that really so much of an improvement? Gru treats them like shit for much of the movie, and, from that, their growing love towards him is completely unfounded. It’s like an animated version of domestic violence. He treats them badly, and yet they continue to stick around, because they have no choice or because where they were previously was bad enough.
If DESPICABLE ME is going to built on this relationship between Gru and these girls, then that connection had better work… or else you’re left with a movie centered around 4 people who have business being together in any way, shape, or form that doesn’t connect at all. I don’t think I need to tell you which one this film falls under.
The rest of the cast blends in remarkably well, as you’ll never be able to pick up Jason Segal, Russell Brand (surprisingly), Will Arnett or Julie Andrews in their supporting roles, which is a far departure from what Carell brings to the table here. But, if there is one saving grace for DESPICABLE ME, and one that’ll bring me to begrudgingly recommend you see this flick, it’s the minions, an army of yellow creatures that seem to fall somewhere between Oompa-Loompas and Lemmings. The minions serve as Gru’s right-hand men for everything, and, while you may not be able to understand their language, you don’t need to in order to understand what they’re saying or what they’re feeling. Every moment they’re on-screen, DESPICABLE ME instantly becomes better, making me wish I could have spent an hour-and-a-half watching a movie about them than the one I got. These characters steal the entire movie, and are enjoyable to watch in everything they do within their own community. The movie doesn’t get much better than seeing them hack into Gru’s adoption background check and boost his resume to include being a dentist, winning the Medal of Honor, and having his own televised cooking show. Also, you’re going to want to make sure you stay through the front-end of the credits, to see the minions engaged in more of their antics. It doesn’t speak well for DESPICABLE ME when some of its best material takes place after the movie is over, but the minions are so entertaining and engrossing that their good makes up for the rest of the bad that fills this movie.
If not for the minions, DESPICABLE ME would have been a solid “no” for me, if you were to ask me if you should see it. However, their presence alone makes DESPICABLE ME not that bad of a movie… granted, it’s not that good either… but it’s not that bad. If you can tolerate the rest of this pedestrian effort, the minions will deliver enough laughs to make up for the lack of that the rest of the movie provides. Kids will probably enjoy the film, but that’s not really the standard by which you should be judging DESPICABLE ME, because kids will watch anything. How else do you explain the popularity of Barney back in the day? Just because a movie is for kids doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be good, as evidenced by 2 of the best films of 2010 that I referenced earlier. DESPICABLE ME isn’t even close to the level of those films, and, if you were hoping for something along those lines like I was, then you might want to emotionally prepare yourself for the disappointment that’s coming. Trust me… I already felt it. However, if you’re willing to accept an animated film that’s not too special, and falls somewhere in the middle between “I’ve seen better” and “I’ve seen worse,” then it’s not a bad movie to see… but it’s not a great movie to see either. It’s nothing more than okay.
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