Megamind
Ever since Kung Fu Panda, DreamWorks has shown that even if they are not able to overtake Pixar as the best animated outfit in town, they can at least keep stride. With hits like Panda, Monsters vs. Aliens and this past spring's exemplary How to Train Your Dragon, they finally seem to have realized that the key to making great animated stories is not to pepper them with pop-culture references that will become stale within a year, but to make stories that can be retold countless times and for future generations.
It's to DreamWorks' credit that they were able to take Jack Black, a comedian I really have no taste for, and create a character for him (in Kung Fu Panda) that held his most annoying mannerisms, for the most part, in check. I had similar hopes that Megamind, which stars the voice of Will Ferrell (a comedian I truly can't stand), could do the same thing. And they ALMOST did.
Megamind, much like this past summer's Despicable Me, tells the traditional superhero story from the villain's side. But whereas Gru was most definitely human, Megamind's origins were more celestial. Borrowing heavily from the Superman mythos, Megamind - who comes from a race of blue-skinned, big-brained aliens - was sent, as a baby, away from his home planet in a rocket ship before it was destroyed in some big cataclysm. Of course, not far away, another set of parents sent their toddler on the exact same course. From there, however, their lives would take very different paths.
The other toddler would be brought up by a wealthy family in a big house, have incredible good looks and be every inch a superhero. The denizens of Metro City would dub him Metro Man (Brad Pitt), as he would, time after time, foil the nefarious schemes of Megamind (Ferrell), who had the misfortune of being raised by prison inmates. The schemes would usually involve the kidnapping of local news-reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey), who by now is fed up with Megamind's tired shenanigans.
Then, the unexpected happens, something even Megamind himself never expected: he wins. He vanquishes his nemesis once and for all, and Metro City is his. But he soon comes to realize that the fight was always more important than the victory; now that he's won, his life has no purpose. Unable to cope with the unfulfilled boredom, he decides to create a new hero to fight, and it comes in the form of Roxanne's nerdish cameraman, Hal (Jonah Hill). He gives Hal an infusion of some of Metro Man's residual DNA, and Hal turns into a powerhouse named Tighten (no, that's not a typo). Unfortunately, rather than become a hero, Tighten decides to be a much-worse supervillain than Megamind ever was.
Kung Fu Panda, besides having the benefit of a terrific period-piece story, also had the benefit of a stellar supporting voice cast, a cast that included Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen and Ian McShane. And while Megamind does have good supporting players, it's pretty much all Ferrell's to carry. The creators gave the comedian, long known for playing crass, loud, obnoxious misogynists, a lot of leeway to infuse the main character with as much of himself as he could. They gave him a fair amount of rope, and while the film didn't exactly "hang" as a result, it was left with a few nasty burns.
Like Gru, Megamind is shown to have a warm-and-fuzzy heart after all, and the villainy was just a coping mechanism for being an outcast or lonely or whatever, and when this side of Megamind comes out, it's really cool to watch. But there are more than a few scenes, usually involving meaningless banter between Megamind and his fish-like sidekick Minion (David Cross) that the film grinds to a halt. Those scenes are overlong and devoid of both humor and meaning, and only serve to remind us all that we're watching a Will Ferrell movie.
And that's rather a shame, because it's those little details that keep Megamind from being great instead of merely good. The visual effects are tremendous (I saw the film in 3D IMAX), and the soundtrack - which includes clever usage of classic songs by AC/DC and Michael Jackson - is spot-on. Pitt is terrific as the square-jawed, too-handsome-for-words Metro Man even though he only appears sparingly, and Fey, Cross and Hill play their parts with aplomb. But as the last decade-plus has shown us, a little Ferrell goes a long way, but too much Ferrell goes absolutely nowhere. Megamind falls somewhere in the middle.
3.5 / 5 stars
