Gru's Moonstruck
"Despicable Me" is certainly fun and in many ways I can see why it is so popular but for some reason it just didn't amuse me in the same way as some other modern animations have. I think the reason why is that whilst fun for grown ups its target audience is clearly children with a lot of the movie built around set pieces. Now there is nothing wrong with that as it is full of suitable humour from slapstick to cute characters for children but as an adult I found myself far too often becoming distracted.
When an even villain called Vector steals the great pyramid Gru feels the need to prove himself the great villain that he is so that it is his name dominating the TV stations. Having assembled his Minions in his laboratory beneath his suburban gothic home Gru has a new despicable plan to steal the moon. But his endeavours are stalled by three orphans who he ends up adopting as part of his plan who instead of seeing the bad in Gru see him as a possible dad.
So as I said I found myself far too often distracted when trying to watch "Despicable Me" and I put that down to that it is very much a set piece driven animation rather than one driven by story or characters. As such we have lots of humour from Gru in his rocket powered vehicle shoving cars out of the way to Gru freezing people in line ahead of him at a coffee shop. And it is not just Gru as we have the stolen pyramid replaced by an inflatable to Vector shrinking down his bathroom with his ray gun. I am sure if I was a little child I would have been in hysterics by it all but to be repetitive as a grown up the numerous gags didn't always keep my attention although the Evil Bank certainly did.
But "Despicable Me" is not just about the gags because it does have a bit of a sweet storyline going on which is all about these 3 orphans girls bringing out a sweet side to Gru who wants to be evil. It is sweet and thanks to a good selection of actors lending their voices especially Steve Carell it is charming. Although some of the voices didn't do it for me and those include Russell Brand and Jason Segel which were too masked to be instantly recognizable.
What this all boils down to is that "Despicable Me" is a fun animation and to be honest I enjoyed it but not as much as other modern animations which I put down to it being very much a children's movie rather than one which has the same level of appeal to grown-ups.
