On my way to see Megamind I did briefly wonder whether I’d bother reviewing it afterwards.* I saw Despicable Me when it was out, found it to be a little dull but perfectly palatable, like Quorn or Boxing day, and couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to write a review afterwards. Like Megamind it’s a kids film and therefore not really aimed at me. They chucked in a couple of adult-oriented jokes to wake up parents but otherwise it’s big, broadly drawn characters combined with slapstick gags and silly voices all the way to the bank. Although we’ve technically come a long way from plonking those dribbling clones of ourselves we call children in front of Punch and Judy on the end of a pier, it’s easy to see that kids would be just as happy watching a sweaty puppeteer crouched in a box as they would absorbing highly defined 3D renderings of a fluffy unicorn.
Megamind is cast from the same mould as The Incredibles and a host of other superhero-related animations from the past decade. Here the title character, voiced by ebullient shrimp-eyed Clarkson-lookalike Will Ferrell, is an alien stranded on earth as a baby. Brought up in a high security prison and consequently endowed with evil tendencies, Megamind finds his nemesis in fellow extraterrestrial and all-American good guy Metro Man, voiced by Angelina Jolie-enabler Brad Pitt. The pair duke it out until the evil genius seemingly kills off his foe, thus winning the city for himself. Bored with a lack of competition he eventually infuses a nerdy cameraman with Metro Man’s DNA, creating what he hopes will be a replacement do-gooder called Titan (Jonah Hill). This backfires when news reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey) spurns Titan’s amorous advances and Megamind has to save the city in a role-reversal that reveals his altruistic heart etc etc.
Megamind shows off all the shine and sparkle of its high budget and it looks undeniably good. But the script lacks any morsels of intrigue for the adults and it might not even be enough to sustain older kids through the hour and a half run. Pitt’s role is miniscule and unfairly emphasised in the trailers, while Fey isn’t given anything interesting to do. Hill does a good job of moving from passive dork to snarling villain, which gives me confidence that he’s got a lot more to offer us in the future, and Ferrell seems to have fun with his role even if he fails to make it particularly memorable.
Essentially if you don’t have kids you don’t really need to see Megamind. With such strong animated features from Pixar and Sony still fresh in my mind (Toy Story 3 and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs respectively), Dreamworks’ latest effort looks like a very well made picture fashioned from macaroni and the glue of missed opportunities.
*Turns out I eventually did. Which is why you are reading this and not watching cats be adorably thick on YouTube.
