Megamind

Dreamworks tends to be very hit and miss with their releases when it comes to me. While they have had the misses for some reason I feel like when they have the hits they seem to really hit hard. In my mind Megamind has been one of the best releases they have done. Megamind is a movie that turns a normal story completely upside down and it miraculously works. The super villian Megamind finally defeats nemesis Metro Man, but without his nemesis Megamind becomes bored and his life loses its purpose. So to fight this purpose Megamind sets out to create a new superherom for him to battle. It was a whole new comedic twist which was perfect on so many levelss. For me there were two great reasons that made Megamind so enjoyable for both adults and kids alike.

First, were the characters that were brought on screen. Will Ferrell in the role of Megamind I though was brilliant. He played the role flawed, but lovable, a guy we can pity for all the crap he took that drove him to villainry. We appreciate his intelligence, but at the same time we still laugh at his screw ups and flamboyant nature. The greatest aspect is Ferrell somehow took this character which could have been a simple comic villian turned protagonist and really turned the character into a complete three dimensional character, and the audience completely cares about him. Brad Pitt in the small role of Metro Man gives a funny performance that even ends up being a snide parody of a certain man of steel. I ended up loving that simply because the man of steel has never really been one of my favorite super heroes. Tina Fey plays the role of the recurring damsel in distress, Roxanne to perfection. Her role plays so similar to Megamind in she has qualities at the same time that are opposites. She seems to be kidnapped a lot and while she plays a scared feeling at times more then anything else though she comes off being brave because no matter how many times she gets kidnapped, Megamind does not threaten her because he always loses out to Metro Man. The rest of the supporting cast are all great in their roles, Jonah Hill particularly did a pretty amazing job at giving a full dimensional character as well.

The story for Megamind is the second aspect that worked so well for this movie. Megamind has a story that was not onl a great twist on the superhero storyline, but at the same time it had a real genuine heart. I felt that the story was brought was really well thought out and worked perfectly with everything else that was going on, for Megamind. A lot of times with the animated comedy movies you get the comedy aspect, but the story mostly is there as a vehicle for all the comedy and jokes to come about. The story for Megamind though comes across as having genuine heart that you are able to feel what the characters are going through. The stor was far from what I was expecting going in simply because of the fact that with the story it was not the simple good versus eviel super hero story, bu instead it gave a twist to it that in the end made for a much better movie than what was expected going in.

The comedy in this movie was actually funny from the opening moments to the very end. While Will Ferrell and Tina Fey gave the comedic performances I was expecting, the way Brad Pitt brought the comedy to Metro Man just struck the perfect cord with me. So many scenes within the movie I found to be fairly funny and really worked to add another dimension to the comedy. I loved the interactions between Megamind and Roxanne when she is kidnapped, the first part of that makes for great situational comedy because of the way she is able to tell Megamind everything he is going to do before he does it. While it has not often happened, but I felt the use of classic rock throughout the film worked to not only add to the scenes, but also worked to bridge moments of comedy back to the story of progression. Plus, I simply love how a lot of the classic rock music has found its way into movies recetly. One of my facorite scenes is when Megamind instructs Titan that he can not be the super villian because he can not make the effect needed. So Megamind shows how this is done with his "Welcome to the Jungle" entrance.

Megamind ended up being one of those movies that was nothing like I expected, but it was because of that, that I think it worked. The creation of such complete characters on so many levels is one aspect that really stood out to me. I still find Pitt's snide parody playing of Metro Man to be a spot on parody of the man of steel. The ability the story had to have those genuine of heart moments to the moments that just make you laugh is why I am giving Megamind three and a quarter buckets of popcorn out of five. I would dare to say that I believe Megamind to be one of the best animated movies that Dreamworks has done. This is one of those movies that will be added to the movie collection at some point.

-The Movie Man