DVD - Megamind

or: Anti-heroes saving the day.

One word to sum it up: Delightful.

Along with Jennifer Aniston romantic comedies, films about artificial insemination, Iraq war dramas and claustrophobically-themed thrillers, movies which have the anti-hero becoming the hero have been a particular trend-setter in Hollywood these days. We saw it in The Social Network. We saw it in Despicable Me. The next movie to adopt an unlikeable character as the lead is Megamind, one of the lesser animated movies from 2010. In a year filled with such amazing animated efforts like Toy Story 3, How to Train Your Dragon and Tangled, Megamind was somewhat forgotten, and it was no where near as good as those three, but it's still another example of why animated movies rule the roost.

Super-villain Megamind (Will Ferrell) has defeated his good-guy nemesis Metro Man (Brad Pitt), and has found that life is tedious since he no longer has anyone to fight. So instead, Megamind creates a new foe, in the form of Titan (Jonah Hill). Titan has a different idea, though. He uses his new powers to destroy the world instead of be a hero like Metro Man was. So Megamind, now faced with the wrath of this powerful new villain, he has to save the world himself instead of destroy it, and get the girl (Tina Fey), who thinks that he is someone else.

There is absolutely nothing new about Megamind. If I were to compare this to anything else, I would say that this is exactly like Despicable Me without the cute kids and with a love interest. It even has a 'minion', so that comparison is hard to avoid. That's not to say that this is a bad movie. Like most other animated movies, this movie has a delightful cast, wonderful visuals and a few great laughs. The vocal cast is brilliant. I love Will Ferrell when he is voicing animated characters more than I enjoy his actual acting, as his over-the-top dramatic vocal work is actually quite funny and well suited to this. Tina Fey, the funny woman she is, also does beautiful voice work as the heroine. Brad Pitt's role was surprisingly small, but I did quite enjoy his performance. His character was a stand-out, too.

Being originally made in 3D, the visuals were of course great. I did feel that the visuals were similar to those in Monsters vs. Aliens, which highlights further that this movie has regurgitated a lot of material from it's far better predecessors. As would be expected of a kid's movie, the laughs were particularly large, even though many could be restricted to an older audience. If one has seen a lot of animated movies, especially those from Pixar, they might feel a little underwhelmed by the result of this film. It is forgettable, but it's quite an enjoyable watch, and one that should by no means be ignored. If you've seen Despicable Me, chances are you'll enjoy watching an exact copy of that one.

THE VERDICT: Megamind is much like any other animated film, in the way that it doesn't add anything unique and it's still extremely enjoyable.

What I hoped for:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
What I got: (just)