Despicable Me

Despicable Me is a computer animated kids movie that was released on July 9th. It has a pretty notable voice cast, the most prominent actors being Steve Carell, Jason Segal, Miranda Cosgrove, and Russell Brand. It's about 90 minutes long, and has a cute story. WHICH GOES A LITTLE SOMETHING LIKE THIS:

The main protagonist is an evil Russian-type villain named Gru (Steve Carell), who aspires to steal the moon and become the greatest villain of all time. However, he's too poor to obtain the proper resources, and the bank refuses to lend him any more money, given his previous string of failed nefarious schemes. So, he decides to steal a Shrink Ray (which is necessary to his moon heist), from a young up-and-coming villain named Vector (Jason Segal), in order to convince the bank of his competence. Because Vector would never let Gru enter his fortress without suspicion, Gru decides to adopt three little girls, (the eldest of which is voiced by Miranda Cosgrove), and secretly enlist them into his plot. This leads them on a madcap adventure, which ultimately ends with Gru finally realizing what his life has been missing - A FAMILY. AWW.

So, this movie is pretty good. It's actually not as funny as I thought it would be given the voice talent. The humor is mostly built upon zany physical pratfalls, which are amusing exclusively to children. Gru's hoard of identical mindless minions living in his laboratory provide a lot of the comedy. It seems like a weird choice, but it's actually kind of admirable, due to the fact that "cartoon-y" cartoons have become pretty blase in the past twenty years. It definitely stands apart from How to Train Your Dragon and the super existential Toy Story 3. Steve Carell and Jason Segal are pretty funny as their respective characters, and Russell Brand is unrecognizable as Gru's assistant Dr. Nefario, for whatever that's worth. Miranda Cosgrove does a decent job with orphan Margo, although she is perpetually shadowed by the youngest orphan Agnes, who is given all of the adorable cheeky lines. I can't speak for the 3D because I didn't see it in 3D, but there are some sequences during the credits which were clearly intended for 3D, so if you're into the gimmicky pop-out-at-your-face paddle ball type gags, get it while the gettins good. Oh and for anyone who cares, Pharrell did a couple of original songs for this movie, none of which are good or memorable.

Overall 3/5 - it's a cute movie.
Hottie Factor 0/5 - it's animated?
Wacky Shenanigans 4/5 Pretty much as many as you could ask for short of straight up Loony Tunes