REVIEW: Megamind 3D

MOVIE
Megamind

CAST
Will Ferrell, Tina Fey

RATING
PG

RELEASE
November 5, 2010

DIRECTOR
Tom McGrath

STUDIO(S)
DreamWorks Animation,

Paramount Pictures

RUNNING TIME
1 hour 33 minutes

GRADE
A+ (97)

STARS
****

REVIEW:

Dreamworks Animation has been having a solid year so far. With successful movies like How To Train Your Dragon on their bill this year, they're going to have a hard time topping something as heartwarming and funny as "Dragon." With their latest movie, Megamind, they fail to give a touching and heartwarming story for Academy members to notice, but they sure as heck give the audience a smart and hilarious animated movie that is surely one of the funniest movies of 2010. Most of it is thanks to the voice acting. It can also be because of the animation and its use of 3D, but whatever it is, this is an incredibly funny movie that should be a must see for audiences everywhere.

SYNOPSIS (Taken from Moviefone.com)

BE WARNED THAT THIS SYNOPSIS HAS SPOILERS, SO WATCH OUT!

From the studio that brought you Shrek, Madagascar, and Kung Fu Panda, Megamind is the most brilliant supervillain the world has ever known. And the least successful. Over the years, he has tried to conquer Metro City in every imaginable way. Each attempt, a colossal failure thanks to the caped superhero known as "Metro Man," an invincible hero until the day Megamind actually kills him in the throes of one of his botched evil plans. Suddenly, Megamind has no purpose. A supervillain without a superhero. He realizes that achieving his life's ambition is the worst thing that ever happened to him. Megamind decides that the only way out of his rut is to create a new hero opponent called "Titan", who promises to be bigger, better and stronger than Metro Man ever was. Pretty quickly Titan starts to think it's much more fun to be a villain than a good guy . Except Titan doesn't just want to rule the world, he wants to destroy it. Now, Megamind must decide: can he defeat his own diabolical creation? Can the world's smartest man make the smart decision for once? Can the evil genius become the unlikely hero of his own story?

It's hard to describe the complexity of Megamind for me. No, not really, since this movie doesn't have a bit of originality, other than Will Ferrel's hilarious voice as Megamind. I'm not saying that this was a bad movie, far from it, but every movie needs some originality, doesn't it? Other than little sense of originality, Megamind exceeds in expectations. Like every DreamWorks movie, the animation is stunning. The creation of Metro Man can make you sort of give you a sense of imagination of what Brad Pitt looks like as a superhero. That's both funny to the kids, but funnier to the adults as well. Megamind, as a movie proves that Will Ferrell can do any role he wants to, as long as it's in comedy. But believe it or not, Will Ferrell isn't the only perfect voice casting in this movie.

It's not just Will Ferrell that takes the spotlight in Megamind, it's most of the ensemble cast that have their own spotlight moments in the movie a few times as well. One of the funniest characters in this movie happened to be David Cross as Megamind's evil assistant, Minion. I've never been a fan of David Cross, since all I've seen him in were villain roles in the Alvin and the Chipmunks series, and Year One with Jack Black. But hearing his slightly calm voice in such a huge and monstrous looking creature was the only role Mr. Cross could be in for this movie. Another funny voice in this movie belongs to Jonah Hill, who plays an ordinary camera-worker turned superhero named Hal/Titan in this movie. Although Jonah Hill plays the same character, (Just like his Superbad costar, Michael Cera) he is just flat out hilarious as this supervillan wanna be, who has a crush on Tina Fey's character, Roxanne Ritchi. (Who doesn't have a crush on Tina Fey, anyway?) So basically, it's just Jonah Hill playing a muscular Jonah Hill in tights. That may seem annoying, but it's one of the biggest reasons why Megamind is just a whole lot of fun.

Whether you're a hug fan of one or two of the cast members, enjoy DreamWorks movie, or are taking the kids to see a movie, Megamind, from the moment it begins, is a funny, lighthearted, and visually amazing movie. I doubt it will achieve the greatness of How To Train Your Dragon and Pixar's Toy Story 3, but it's still a funny and harmless the whole family will love. This is also a good movie for parents who want to expose their kids to A-List PG-13 stars like Will Ferrell and Brad Pitt. But isn't that why Dreamworks are made, to expose younger kids to adult, PG-13 A-Listers? Well with this kind of cast, this is a movie not to miss. So when you're walking out of the movie (try to catch it in 3D, by the way) well surprised by what you saw, you'll know then that you had a "Megamind" for going to see Megamind that day.