Mega entertainment

Megamind (2010)
Certified: PG
Duration: 96 minutes
Directed by: Tom McGrath
Voices of: Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, David Cross, Brad Pitt
KRS release

While Pixar may be the king of the animation roost, DreamWorks has had quite a good year with How To Train Your Dragon, Shrek Forever After and their latest production, Megamind. The three films together have cashed in nearly $1.4 billion.

While Megamind may not have the epic feel of How To Train Your Dragon – which is one of the main contenders for the Best Animated Academy Award – it is however a fun-filled movie and a colourful and crazy trip. Children will love the antics on screen while adults will enjoy seeing how the usual rules of the superhero genre are turned on their heads.

Megamind (Will Ferrell) and Metro Man (Brad Pitt) are long-term rivals even though they both hail from the same planet. However, the two had been raised in different homes and the result shows. Since their school days, Megamind has had to compete with Metro Man’s strength and good looks, and so he went the evil path.

Helped by an army of robots and his second-in-command, the fish-headed Minion (David Cross), Megamind usually opts to kidnap the lovely TV journalist Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey). Hal (Jonah Hill), Roxanne’s cameraman, who has a crush on her ends up getting Megamind’s attention when he is bored.

When it seems that Megamind is victorious and Metro Man is no more, boredom sinks in. So he alters Hal’s DNA in order to create a new hero who can challenge him. However, things soon get out of hand: Megamind falls in love and Hal opts to become a villain with his newly acquired powers!

Some of the characters are inevitable jabs at well-established comic books and pop icons with Metro Man being a huge spoof of Superman. The latter is the archetypal hero complete with square jaw. The fun lies in the characters, the situations they are placed in and in the fast and sharp humour.

The film’s concept of a villain who wins over the hero is interesting as it is the opposite of what happens in Disney films. Comparisons to The Incredibles are inevitable; especially in the overall look of the film and in the zany way the film touches the genre’s rules. Thus Megamind comes complete with secret bases, weapons and gadgets galore, all to a fast neck-breaking pace.

Will Ferrell’s voicing is frenetic and like his usual on-screen persona, takes getting used to. A fair share of characters seem to walk out of a 1950s B-movie, giving the film a distinct flavour.

Contrary to other superhero films, Megamind delivers the message that we are the owners of our own destinies, not that we are pre-destined to do something in life, and that everyone has to be judged by his achievements.