Brief Reviews: Despicable Me

February 25th, 2014, 8am

It was 5.6°C with broken clouds. The wind was calm.

If you’ve considered seeing Despicable Me, and you haven’t yet, where have you been?

Yes, there are little yellow characters that are now in pop culture spanning toddles to pre-teens. Yep, there’s definitely Steve Carrell doing that weird voice. You’re right, there’s even some pretty impressive 3D animation, one of the first movies to really push the envelope in terms of making a movie which necessitated the 3D experience (the summer of 2010 was a great one, as How To Train Your Dragon came out too). There are lots of little gags and silly jokes and plenty of opportunities for a snooty grown up to roll their eyes, but the best part of Despicable Me isn’t that Gru saves the girls: it’s that the girls save him.

We don’t see often enough—in life or in film—a demonstration of the power of children. As much as a parent’s love helps a child grow, a child’s love can help a parent grow too. Children can be agents of change, just by being their loving, needy selves, and Despicable Me reminds us (quite subtly, I might point out) that we were all once a Margo, Esther, or Agnes, and we can all one day be a Gru (hopefully the good, end of the movie kind).

This is the kind of movie I don’t watch often, but enjoy every time I do. That’s a bit hard to do with a movie that wasn’t rooted in my own experience of childhood.


David Wade said thanks.

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Valerie Stimac

Constraints create lots of great things, diamonds and creativity among them.

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