The Case for LIkeable Despicability

Despicable Me is like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs with Ewoks.

Make sense? The film is basically quite good, with some amazing visuals, ridiculous inventions (most quite retro-futuristic in an Incredibles kind of way) and a story stupid enough to be loads of fun if executed properly. And then, to this mix, the producers decided to add to layers of cute: the incomprehensible Sponge Bob-ish like minions, and a trio of orphaned sisters.

Its unfortunate that you can see exactly what strings the minions and sisters are trying to pull. Almost nothing in any scene they are in is subtle, which to me robs those scenes with most of their colour. There are digs at Lehman Brothers, at evil nemeses and their dastardly doings and the like, but when the cute factor is ramped up, and the sentimentality dial is set to sickening, it all becomes a bit painful. And the less said about the "disco" scenes the better.

For all that negativity, it isn't a terrible film. The hiding place for the Pyramid of Giza cracked me up every time I saw it. Steve Carrell's evil eastern accent as Gru loses any charm about 3 minutes into the film, but the character still is quite amusing. The real joy though is to be held in the amazing and insane inventions that grace the screen, as its obvious a lot of love has gone into their design. Its just a pity the love all went there rather than into the script.

Verdict: Amusing enough, but weighed down by far too much cuteness, Despicable Me has the odd reference that parents might enjoy, but is aimed mostly at the pre-teen girl market. 6 sinister schemes out of 10.