A few weeks back, Despicable Me co-screenwriters Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul graciously sat down for a candid interview. We talked about the inspiration for the Eastern European accent affected by their leading man, Steve Carell. They addressed the challenges of devising innovative action sequences when they knew, in advance, that their animation had to be in 3-D. And they shared lessons they learned while writing Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who!
I asked them if it stuck in the back of their minds that their original animated feature happened to be coming out in the same summer as a fourth Shrek and a third Toy Story.
"No, that's at the front of our minds," Daurio said with a nervous chuckle. "There's no way to say, 'Oh, two of the biggest animated franchises ever are coming out on either side of our movie. That's fine! We'll be fine!'"
The collaborators maintained a brave front because they are confident in their movie. But they were right to worry.
Despicable Me is perfectly fine by most animation standards. Carell voices Gru, an evil villain who seems to have wandered out of a '70s-era Bond movie. Gru is getting on in years, and his plans for world domination are routinely upstaged by a younger, smarter menace named Vector (Jason Segel). Gru needs one more scheme to get back in the game, so he devises a plan to steal the moon by shrinking it to the size of a silver dollar. But to complete the mission, he must adopt three adorable orphans who are in dire need of a family.
Spoofing the secret-agent genre by telling a story through the eyes of a conventional villain opens Despicable Me up to a world of options. The subtle satire gleaned from Gru's predicaments caters to adult audience members. His adorable yellow minions will entertain the film's youngest patrons. There's a memorable riff on Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible that involves a dangling shrink ray and a killer shark. And there's a warm-hearted subplot regarding the joys of parenthood that will inspire moms and dads to clutch their cuddly kids and thank them for being around.
But Despicable Me arrives on the heels of Pixar's masterful Toy Story 3, and while I acknowledge it's unfair to compare them, the movies simply don't occupy the same playing field. Lee Unkrich's comical, tearful sequel moves its audience with a profound, multi-layered adventure aimed at the heart as well as the mind. Similarly high aspirations can't be found in Despicable Me. It sets out to entertain, and for the most part, it succeeds. Back when multiplexes were filled with the likes of Antz, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, or the Ice Age series, that was acceptable. But the animation bar has been raised, permanently, and Despicable Me misses it by a mile.
