Despicable Me

Rating: 9.2/10

Genre: Animation

Overall value for time and money: 9.5/10

Having been out of evil steals for a while, an evil villian, Gru, comes up with a new diabolical plan to steal the moon, hoping to make himself the most capable villian around. However, the new villian kid on the block, Vector, is making things very difficult for him, and coming up with yet another sinister plan to make use of 3 newly adopted young girls to steal a shrinking device from Vector, will Gru finally be able to "prove" himself to the world?

It started off slow, almost with an extreme low with the sleezy humor and me being not used to Steve Carrell's fake voice-over. But this movie turned out to be one of the best movies, and animations I've caught this year. A truly pleasant surprise, for, in my opinion, it beats Toy Story 3 hands down. The pace caught up after the first 5 minutes of the movie, when the 3 little girls first came on. And from then on, it just kept getting better.

The youngest and smallest girl is the cutest animation kid around, with the fat chubby boy from Up being the 2nd. She really brought much entertainment and feelings to the movie and I think she totally stole the limelight from the male antagonist, Gru. The 2 other girls complemented her character very well, with one being the more mature sister-like child, and the other being the crude, and direct child. As for the youngest girl, she was the innocent and adorable child. Her cuteness and her innocent big eyes are a notch higher compared to the Puss in Boots from Shrek. And the most amazing fact about the movie is that this animation isn't even a Pixar or Dreamworks production, but a universal pictures production... and this animation really puts universal pictures up there with the leading animation companies.

And as if the 3 girls and Gru didn't add enough entertainment to the movie, the production also added in minions... Gru's underlings who looked like yellow tablets. They reminded me of the little green aliens from Toy Story, only smarter and more handy. There was endless possibilties for the use of the minions... and the way they were utilized also added a good deal of humor to the movie. Most of the time, the words that came out from their mouths were gibberish... and they were so rubbishy it could easily sweep anyone off their seats laughing out loud. Had many good laughs in this film, as well as "awwsss", which I thought was one of the biggest factor contributing to the success of the film.

It's not just intensive senseless humor packed into a 95 min animation but the storyline, *spoilers ahead* how an evil villian changed for the better because of ahem...* love, also greatly enhanced it. It's not everyday that you come across a movie with the male lead also being the villian (definitely not in an animation) and I thought the concept was very refreshing. It's not a matter of who's good or who's bad but who's the more evil villian... Touching, hilarious, entertaining and heart-warming for audiences of all ages, all races, and all sexes. One word... OUTTTTSTTTAAANNNDDDIINNGGGG!!!