For all their foiled schemes, super-villains usually win the day with audiences. So is it any wonder actors prefer playing charismatic, fiendish outlaws over leaden, square-jawed do-gooders? Or that this year there's not one, but two, animated comedies focusing on, not the hero, but the bad guy? The second, Megamind, is scheduled to open in the fall.
But out of the secret lair first is Despicable Me, in which the malefactor in question is the angular, stoop-shouldered Gru, performed marvelously by Steve Carell with a voice that's part-Dr. Evil, part-Vladimir Putin. Is Gru a malevolent sadist who relishes in causing the misery of others? Unquestionably. But under the sinister surface, Carell invests him with a child-like yearning, and even deeply buried innocence. He probably wouldn't be so maniacal, we eventually learn in flashbacks, if he stopped over-compensating for a loveless upbringing by his impossible-to-please mother (Julie Andrews).
However, when we first meet Gru, he's randomly harassing strangers on what might be just another ordinary day for a criminal mastermind. In his own mind, he's the most dastardly desperado out there, but the world is soon wowed by a new mysterious nemesis who announces his presence by pilfering a pyramid.
His fragile sense of self-worth severely shaken, and desperate to reclaim his mojo as humanity's chief menace, Gru conjures a plan to pull off an even more staggering heist. Which is? Hijack the moon by rocketing into space with a shrink ray. Sounds deceptively simple, sure, but as Gru discovers when he goes to his bank, it's a new economy. And despite his grandiose ideas, he's never been very good at turning a profit.
So rejected for a loan, he's forced into a game of one-upmanship for the sole existing shrink ray with the aforementioned pyramid thief Vector (Jason Segel). While Vector's hi-tech digs are seemingly impenetrable -- even though, like Gru's abode, the place is nestled comfortably in the suburbs -- Gru discovers his foe has a weakness for baked goods and adopts three cookie-carrying orphans to unwittingly help facilitate a break-in and swipe the shrink ray.
Predictably, Gru's hardened sociopathic bearing softens as he assumes parenting duties. Suddenly, he's as much Daddy Warbucks as Lex Luthor.
While the flashbacks recalling Gru's upbringing hint at the kind of cartoon existentialism Pixar does so well, much of Despicable Me -- produced by former Fox Animation president Chris Meledandri's Illumination Entertainment -- ultimately skews younger than that. Gru's ultra-cool arsenal of weaponry, for one, is designed for eye-popping 3D slapstick effect. And his legion of jabbering, neon-yellow minions should delight kids.
Yet at the same time, the movie, directed by Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin, isn't strictly a juvenile entertainment either. Buoyed by Carell's stellar vocal work, it's a broadly satisfying, snappily paced comedy that should play well, especially with families -- even if total planetary conquest is probably beyond its grasp.
