Review

Review Date: 7-November-10
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Just OK

Megamind (2010)

The early marketing for Megamind was not particularly truthful. It showed the title character, a smirking blue villain in a black cape (Will Ferrell), squaring off against a white-clad superhero with too much chin and ego (Brad Pitt). The favoring of a cartoonish bad guy over an obnoxious good guy looked like a fine opportunity for badinage and genre-poking. But Megamind turns out to be cute rather than comic, and Pitt's role is marginal to boot. The eagerly evil Megamind and vocally virtuous Metro Man are lifelong enemies who hail from outer space and fascinate the inhabitants of their city with battles which Metro Man always wins. But at the beginning of the movie Megamind apparently defeats his rival once and for all. Faced with the boredom of unchallenged dominion, he mopes around and quarrels with his only friend (David Cross), a fish who accompanied him from his native planet. Megamind sees but two chances for bettering his life. One involves winning the girl of his dreams (Tina Fey), an intrepid reporter whom he must deceive to get close to; the other involves creating a new rival by implanting Metro Man's DNA into a naturally heroic human. The second plan looks even more ill-fated than the first after the DNA accidentally lands in a dweeb who is long on pettiness and short on honor (Jonah Hill). This character poses the central challenge of the story.

The crux of Megamind is that people may think their lives are preordained or dictated by circumstance when in fact everyone controls his own destiny. The rise of a true enemy, along with tender feeling, forces Megamind to rethink his career choice and consider becoming a hero. I applaud this theme but not the movie, which suffers from a lack of freshness. Modeling the run-of-the-mill love interest on Lois Lane doesn't click since the promised Superman spoof never pans out. The monster whom Megamind creates seems like the dull grandchild of the red-haired imp from The Incredibles. And although Megamind doesn't recall another character in particular, he is lackluster for the subject of a movie. After all, the guy relies on blaring rock music to draw attention in a crowd … which is similar to relying on a false trailer to advertise a movie.

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