Reviews

Though it eventually morphs into quite the little crowd-pleaser, Despicable Me suffers from an opening half hour that seems to consist solely of desperate jokes spouted by characters that are almost uncomfortably unusual. It's not until the movie discovers its heart that it begins to improve, as the increasingly compelling nature of Gru's relationship with Margo, Edith, and Agnes is just charming enough (and sweet enough) to re-capture the viewer's waning interest. And while it will never be compared to, say, Toy Story 3 or even How to Train Your Dragon, Despicable Me is exactly the sort of easy-going animated film that you can feel comfortable taking your kids to (although it's clear that they'll ultimately get a whole lot more out of it than you will).

By David Nusair

Working without apology from the Pixar game book, Universal's first 3D-animated movie, Despicable Me, captures much of what one likes about Pixar cartoons. Starting with a cute yellow creature who appears before the opening credits mimicking Pixar's bouncy table lamp, Despicable adopts the Pixar principle that all things which populate a child's fantasia -- whether toys on a bed, monsters in dreams or the robots and superheroes of science fiction -- are very, very real.

So in this twist on The Incredibles, a story about superheroes longing for the quiet life, Despicable takes a playful poke at supervillains. Wouldn't you know, they turn out to be poor fellows beset with Mommy and Daddy issues.

Despicable doesn't measure up to Pixar at its best. Nonetheless, it's funny, clever and warmly animated with memorable characters. ...

By Kirk Honeycutt