Movie Review: Megamind (2010)

The animated movies uses voices from Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and Ben Stiller.

My wife and I both are known for slipping in movie quotes whenever we have a conversation and, on occasion, have used lines from this movie.

However, we realized some time ago that we had not watched this film since it first came out and, because of that, even though we could remember some of the quotes, we didn't remember much else about the film. As a result of that, when I had an opportunity to watch it yesterday, I did. And, much like the first time we watched this film, I loved it.

I think the thing I really like about this movie is (much like Shrek with fairy tales), this movie does a great job of giving super hero films a new twist. This includes painting the main bad guy, Megamind (Ferrell) in a way that makes him seem more like a victim than a villain and, because of that, makes it much easier to cheer for him, even though his main rival, Metro Man (Pitt) isn't really that bad of a guy himself.

This twist does make the movie much more interesting as a result too because it's not always clear what path his life is going to take. I kind of figured he would somehow become the hero. But, at least from the way he was handling things as the new overlord of Metro City, it wasn't as predictable as I would expect a movie like this to be, especially since his newly-created rival, Tighten (Hill) is both unstable and not overly bright.

I think the character that really won me over, however, was Megamind's love interest, Roxanne (Fey). Much like the other characters in this movie, she wasn't the typical damsel in distress. Yes, she had a bad habit of getting captured by Megamind and, later, Tighten. But, I loved how she still stood up for herself, even when the situation seemed hopeless, and wasn't afraid to speak her mind. This gave her much more depth than many of the love interests you see in normal super hero films and made her an X factor that, again, kept the film from becoming too predictable.

This is a fun family film that is both entertaining and (of course) has plenty of memorable lines. If you haven't seen the movie, I would recommend it.

My Grade: A