Am I allowed to call this a superhero movie? If so, this is the best one this year. Beats Iron Man 2, beats...I'm drawing a blank because they've just been forgettable. This one is impressive and a little dark coming from the usually crazy, fart joke central Dreamworks. Megamind gives Pixar a run for their money. There I said it, Dreamworks may be catching up to Pixar. (See my Toy Story 3 review for an example of my Pixar worship)
First off lets get the technical out on the board. The animation is really smooth, and it blows my mind how close animation can get to being realistic while staying cartoon-y. Metro City looks amazing, bright, maybe even a gold tint, while our hero Metroman is reining. Then our villain takes control and everything goes blue. I'm being literal, the whole city is blue all the time. Now Megamind doesn't paint EVERYTHING blue that would be ridiculous. The whole city just takes a dark tint. There are some action scenes that are very cinematic and cool to see since they could never be pulled off in live action, and they are shown very realistically.
I can't really say much about the acting because its voice acting. Will Ferrell doesn't just scream the whole time, and there is one very dramatic scene that is voiced very well by Mr. Ferrell. Tina Fey is a good snarky person we see that in Liz Lemon sometimes, and definitely on Weekend Updates from back in the day. She's only a damsel in distress once the rest of the time she's an impatient woman who's never in real danger. Brad Pitt is pretty good at being the conceited Superman-esque hero...err...antagonist. I'm not even sure what to call him but he has a really jerkish voice, and coveys self-love well. Jonah Hill gives the performance of the movie as hopeless, bum kid Hal who has been turned into the hero-turned-villain Tighten or Titan, once again I'm not sure. The beginning of the movie he's fast talking, and trying to when Roxanne's (Tina Fey) affection. Though the movie you can slowly see his patience running out then he hits point break and becomes our real villain, an actual threat this time.
Here's where the movie's strong point is, the plot. One the surface it sounds simple, villain kills his rival doesn't know what to do with his life and eventually becomes the hero. When you actually watch it there are more twists than a sock hop.
I won't spoil the ending here but I will reveal some twists so if you don't want to know go ahead and skip this paragraph. For you that remain, hold onto your hats. We start out on Megamind (Henceforth MM) falling from the sky talking about how this is turning out to be another one of his embarrassing losses. We then rewind to both MM and Metroman's planets being sucked into a black hole, they both reach Earth via Superman plot and of course Metroman gets a good home and MM is brought up in a prison. When they both go to school the children react to MM as any of us would to a blur alien with a cranium the size of John Goodman. He's never picked for games and no one respects his great inventions.
Through the years MM and Metroman fight and MM always loses. He soon escapes prison and completes a plan and kills Metroman. Now that's risky. This is a kids movie, superhero played for laughs and they kill of the good guy? In th first half hour? MM after a while of running the city MM has no purpose and makes a new superhero, Hal, the fat, lazy cameraman. MM trains Hal while dating Roxanne, under the disguise of the Metroman Museum care taker. To get there though, he loses Minion his only friend. Roxanne eventually finds out that she's dating Megamind and leaves him. Megamind is left with nothing. When Hal is ready he is given a suit, and becomes Titan, Metro City's new hero. One problem, Titan loved Roxxanne and saw MM in disguise on their date. He lets his emotions get the better of him and turn to the side of villainy with only one man to stop him, Megamind.
After failed attempts Megamind and Roxanne, now a team, decide to raid Metroman's old lair to see if they can find a way to stop Titan since it is Metroman's power. What they find is the 1st twist of the movie. Metroman alive and well working on his music career. He's retired from the hero game and tells Megamind that he needs to form his own destiny. That was the only thing that really made me doubt this movie. The risky plot of killing the good guy is retconned but it works back in later. In "an epic battle between good an evil" Titan come out the victor. Supposedly killing MM with a building. Titan hurls a bus at Roxxy and who saves her? Metroman! Coming back to the game by helping his city one last time. When Roxxy checks on Megamind she finds out its Minion using the technology MM used to disguise himself as the museum curator. And is Metroman really back. No. Its Megamind, now falling through the air from the start of the movie. To shorten things up, MM takes Hal's powers and becomes the city's protector.
Dad' gum' that was a long explanation. So, the movie has a lot of great character development and twists and turns to keep you interested. A lot of humor for you're kids to enjoy and a whole bunch of superhero references for kids like me. The only character that didn't have a change through the story was Roxxane but the other characters make up for it. So total score out of 10. I'm gonna say 9, its a nearly perfect film. Definitely check it out.
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