Directed by Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin. Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews, Will Arnett, Kristen Wiig, Miranda Cosgrove. Universal/Illumination.
Decent Films Ratings
| Overall Recommendability |
?B |
|---|---|
| Artistic/ Entertainment Value |
? |
| Moral/Spiritual Value (+4/-4) |
? +2 |
| Age Appropriateness |
?Kids & Up |
External Ratings
| MPAA | ?PG | USCCB | ?A-I |
|---|
Content advisory: Recurring rude humor; slapstick violence and animated excitement.
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By Steven D. Greydanus
Villains, it seems, are the new heroes. If this trend in animated family films didn’t quite begin in 2007 with the twin fractured fairy tales Happily N’Ever After and Shrek the Third, that was still the year that computer-animated villains began to express self-aware dissatisfaction with their second-class status and demand something more.
The next year there was Igor, a horror-movie spoof about a kingdom of mad scientists and a hunchbacked sidekick with creative aspirations of his own. Then last year Monsters vs. Aliens turned icons of 1950s monster movies — the Fly, the Blob and the Creature from the Black Lagoon as well as the 50-Foot Woman — into a team of superheroes.
Now there’s Despicable Me, a comic-book / 007 spoof on the supervillain archetype: Dr. Evil without Austin Powers. Later this year: Megamind, a superhero satire in which Superman’s origins are recapitulated in two opposing characters, a lantern-jawed hero named Metro Man and his blue-skinned nemesis.
