MOVIE NEWS: Megamind

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a life-long supervillain must decide whether or not he’s truly evil or just a big softy waiting for the right reason to change his ways. No, it’s not Despicable Me (though you have to admit the stories are similar). It’s Megamind! I had a chance to see the new movie at a 3-D sneak preview earlier this week, and I’m here to share some thoughts.

The story: since childhood, square-jawed hero Metro Man and blue-skinned villain Megamind (pictured above) have met in the classic battle of good versus evil — with Metro Man winning every time. But when Megamind finally realises his dream of putting Metro Man out of commission for good, he discovers his life is meaningless without their ongoing struggle. Really: what’s a supervillain without a superhero?

So, when Megamind creates a new superhero who turns out to be an even bigger menace than he ever was, he has to decide: stay bad and let his creation destroy the city or become a hero after all. You’ll have to see the flick to find out what happens!

Meanwhile, here are a few observations I had about the movie:

1) It looks great. It’s bright, painstakingly detailed, and colourful — I guess having a blue main character helps in that department! Also, I’ve been pretty down on the use of 3-D in most movies this year, but here it’s used mostly to add depth and make Metro City more real. The crowd scenes are particularly fantastic.

2) It’s funny. I laughed out loud several times during the movie. Will Ferrell (the voice behind Megamind himself) gives his character some hilariously over-the-top quirks and ticks. There’s lots of good back-and-forth banter as well in classic superhero comic style, too. All that said, however…

3) It might be funnier for fans of old-school superhero stuff. Sure, there are a lot of goofy sight gags (for instance, Megamind’s sidekick, Minion, is a fish who swims around in a fish bowl sitting atop the shoulders of a hairy robot — ha!), but a lot of the jokes are references to other movies and things in pop culture.

Overall, I had a good time watching Megamind. As I mentioned above, it’s far from an original storyline, but the voice cast is great (I didn’t even mention funny-woman Tina Fey as head-strong journalist Roxanne Ritchi) and it’s got enough laughs to keep things moving. The climax is also particularly fun and action-packed.

What do you think, blog readers? Does this sound like something you’d want to see? Something you want to skip? Will you just rent Despicable Me instead? Let me know in the comments below!

Talk to you next week!

Craig, owlblog@owlkids.com