Movie Review: 'Megamind'

After seeing HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON for the first time last week, my faith in DreamWorks skyrocketed. Maybe I should have waited until after MEGAMIND to make up my mind… because now, my opinion has retreated back to square one. MEGAMIND centers around a supervillian of the same name, who is in a constant battle with superhero and protector of Metro City, Metro Man. When he finally succeds in killing Metro Man after years of failure, Megamind realizes that a villian with no one to spar with just isn’t any fun. So he decides to create a new nemisis for himself, which he finds in Hal (Jonah Hill), a geeky cameraman who, like Megamind, is hopelessly in love with reporter Roxanne Richie (Tina Fey).

For me, MEGAMIND was a miss. But this is a special circumstance–every once in a while I come across a movie that for some reason, I know my reaction to it will most likely be one to go along with the minority of the viewers. To the majority, MEGAMIND will probably be a hit. Little kids will giggle at Megamind’s silliness, and adults can laugh at some humor that’s in there specifically for their benefit, such as some great jokes relating to The Godfather and the Obama campaign. When I heard about an animated film with Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey and Jonah Hill as the voice actors, it immediately caught my attention. Plus the trailer just cracked me up. But when I went to go see the movie, and realized the plot was completely different than what the first and only trailer I saw depicted the movie as being about, I was taken for a long, tiring loop. Not only were the actual good jokes too few and far between, but despite the constant action and twisting of the plot, towards the end I found myself just…bored.

As the movie progressed, it started to remind me of another movie I saw fairly recently. I’ll give you three hints: 1) Another animated movie. 2) Main character is also a “super villain” and 3) The super villain has minions as well (although much cuter than the one in MEGAMIND). Yup, you guessed it: DESPICABLE ME. Both involve villains who, in one way or another, are transformed by the power of love and change their evil ways. There is a key difference between the two films though: heart. I never really got on board with the whole Megamind/Roxanne relationship…it came practically out of nowhere and had no backbone. In DESPICABLE ME though, we were actually given the opportunity to fall head over heels for those three adorable little kids, and saw Gru do the same. Trust me, I’m not by any means saying that I need every children’s movie to have a FULL HOUSE twist to it. I don’t need it to be cheesy or sentimental, or even have a clear-cut moral to it in the first place. But the best way to get an adult audience to connect with a film meant for children is to have both clever humor infused with the kiddy jokes, along with the warmth and glee that these kind of movies (or at least the good ones) are usually preprogrammed with (ex: TOY STORY 3). MEGAMIND succeeds at some points with the humor for adults (which little kids will not understand in the least), but when it came to connecting with any of the characters, it was a bust. Will Ferrell is fantastic as Megamind—he’s like a mix of Doctor Evil and, well, himself (with the addition of a slightly British accent). Metro Man (who is pretty much a “cameo”, to my surprise and disappointment) is the classic, square-jawed, muscular, man you’d expect to play a superman-like character. The characters are satirical on the whole “super hero” genre…but that’s all they are: one-dimensional even in 3D. The laughs were there occasionally, the animation wonderful and the soundtrack bangin’…but in the end, I just wish more emphasis had been put into bringing out the stories heart, rather than the size of Megamind’s giant blue head.

Rating: C+