Toon Zone Talkback - "Despicable Me": Far From Despicably Bad, Yet Not Admirably Good

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loveoasis

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This is the talkback thread for "Despicable Me": Far From Despicably Bad, Yet Not Admirably Good.

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Always good to see more competition. But hopefully this new studio can distinguish itself enough to stand out from the pack.
 
I dunno, I always thought that the Blue Sky problem was that they're just so flaky with what kind of style they want their films to be.

Some of them try to do the Dreamworks thing with having their lesser-movie characters spout out random pop-culture jokes and bathroom jokes (which, believe it or not, Dreamworks doesn't do with their better films), or take a page from Pixar and just try to tell a great story they really put their hearts into.
 
It's a shame that Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs got called "better-than-average" and was one again overshadowed by not one, but two Pixar movies, and one of them which wasn't even all that memorable (Up!). Even the thing Meatballs excelled at (animation, humor) is just swept over by Pixar's storytelling.

It almost sounds like Despicable Me is getting a bit of the Pixar-comparison treatment, too. While I cannot see it winning Best Animated Film (Already taken by Toy Story no doubt), it's sad that every CG animated film that comes out must be compared to Pixar.

I hope Despicable can be seen as the light-hearted comedy that it is and not as the deep-telling story that it isn't, which seems to be the only thing people want from CG animated films now-a-days.
 
Don't get me wrong. I liked Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, but it was hardly great cinema. It was humorous but not all of the humor and story completely worked for me.

Same with Despicable Me. It may not be "deep" storytelling, but it still misses out on a lot of interesting opportunities. Also the prologue sequence that essentially became the movie's first teaser trailer is somewhat pointless.

Also in my mind better than average is pretty good.
 
Personally, I really loved the movie! There were a lot of funny parts, and even though the bonding between Gru and the girls was very predictable, it was still believable and even touching in a few scenes. I also thought the animation and designs were really good.

I was expecting to be annoyed by the minions, since I worried they would dectract from the story, but that luckily never happened, and they did add a lot of humor to the film. I was also glad that the 3 girl never acted too cute.

I will say this though: I saw it in 2D, and the end credits scene looks really stupid in that format. I do agree that the teaser/prologue scene felt out of place in the final movie.

I give it 4 stars out of 5. I hope Illumination Entertainment can keep up this level of quality on their future projects.
 
I was initially put off by the movie after seeing the trailers, but after hearing about how good it was from various people, I decided to go and see this movie.

All I have to say is that I'm glad I did. The best scenes are not in the trailers at all. Granted its no Toy Story 3 or How to Train Your Dragon, but the film was very good overall. A lot of the people in the theater were laughing and awwing thoughout the film and applauding at the end.

Could this be a dark horse "very good animated film" since it was not made by Pixar or Dreamworks? I'm actually interested in Illumination Studios future works.
 
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