Monday, July 12, 2010

Movie Review: something something something

The hell are you people doing here?
What time is it?
Oh.
Well. Shit.
Uh.
I... uh... I saw a movie this weekend. There was a guy. And he did this thing.
Hold on.
It was a cartoon. One of them animated thingies. Those tend to be 3D. We didn't want that, so we saw the 2D version.
OH! Right!

So we went to see "Despicable Me" this weekend. It was a great movie.

I said we went to the 2D version. I'm already sick of the whole 3D movie thing. I'm ready for this fad to go away. It's bad enough that tickets cost $11 a pop here. Don't charge $4 more for extra dimensions I'm not gonna use. However, this movie does have a couple of scenes specifically designed for 3D viewing. In particular, a first person perspective on a roller coaster. And during the closing credits the minions are trying to see who can reach the furthest out from the screen.

This was another movie that lived up to it's trailers pretty well. Gru is a super villain. No, he doesn't have any powers, but he has gadgets. Well, no, he's not a genius inventor either. He's got a mad scientist for that. Or he steals the gadget. Not a billionaire. He has to get loans from the bank to finance his schemes. He does provide his own schemes. And he's evil. He's famous for being evil. He's the evilest. At least until someone else stole a pyramid. Now it's on. Gru plans to steal the moon to show he's still number one.

As part of the scheme he needs these three little orphan girls. This being a movie, they have to break through his hard exterior and kinda screw things up.

Things to watch for: Early on there's a Wilhelm Scream. Vector's designs seem to borrow heavily from the designs of Bespin. You know, Bespin. Cloud City from "Empire Strikes Back". Where Lando lives and Han Solo got frozen in Carbonite. Right. That place. Vector's ships and buildings look like they were built by the same guy.

Then there's the minions. They're strange little creatures that are small and cute and yellow and talk mostly nonsense. You can be sure there will be a "Despicable Me" video game and that after the second game in the series the minions will get their own game. Possibly something like "Raving Rabbits", possibly something like "Pikmin" or "Lemmings". We need a new "Lemmings" game.

Anyway, it's a great movie. You'll probably like it more than "Shrek". I think Pixar would be proud of it. I will be getting it on DVD.

No comments: