Rating of
2.5/4
Sploich Reviews Megamind (2010)
Sploich - wrote on 03/06/11
We get a lot of superhero movies these days. Some people would say we get too many (I'm not one of them). They're virtually identical and nearly indistinguishable from one another because they always have the same basic plot: Somebody becomes a hero, gets a villain, then saves a girl. Last year, though, we got a somewhat different take on the classic superhero story in the film Megamind.
Megamind begins with a blatant and rather lazy reference to Superman (one I honestly think they might have stolen out of an episode of Darkwing Duck), introducing use to the titular character and his rival Metro Man. We quickly see them grow up and discover what they believe are their destinies, leading to them being stuck in a never-ending battle of good versus evil. This comes to an end though when Megamind actually defeats his foe. Distraught at the fact that there is no one to stop him from being evil anymore, he tries to cope with the loss of Metro Man as well as to spark a relationship with the superheroes former girlfriend.
I want to call this film disappointing, but in order to be disappointed you probably have to have high expectations going in. The idea for the movie is interesting and in a lot of ways it's used to good effect, but in the end there's an ever-present feeling of laziness and been-there-done-that. There are a lot of jokes throughout that were written solely with very young children in mind while a lot of the dialogue is written for slightly older children with low IQs. It's an original take on a good idea turned bad due to wrongfully dumbing it down for its audience, which happens far too often these days.
I mentioned a moment ago that the dialogue is bad, but I don't think I conveyed just how annoying nearly a third of the dialogue is. There's an agonizing running gag where Megamind seems to have been completely blocked off from the rest of the world his whole life and doesn't know pop culture or, you know, how to pronounce common phrases, like "school" and "hello." They make a point that he grew up in a prison, but seriously? There's even a major plot point made in the fact that he can't pronounce "Metro City," something that at the very least he would have learned in Metro City Prison. It doesn't help that the performances are really terrible. The characters are voiced by such A-listers as Will Ferrell, David Cross, Jonah Hill, Tina Fey and Brad Pitt, almost all of whom are incredibly annoying to listen to (Brad Pitt, however, is always awesome). Will Ferrell proves once again that he can't give an even remotely emotional performance even though he was playing Megamind, who I found to be rather deep and emotional.
Megamind is a mess of a film that could have been a lot better if it hadn't been made for such a juvenile audience. With better casting, more invested dialogue and less jarring art style, it could have been a really great animated film. Nevertheless, it was a lot less annoying on the whole that most of DreamWorks' movies, and the story was interesting enough that I did enjoy it to at least some extent.
