This is the second of two recent animated super-villain movies. The first was DESPICABLE ME (reviewed HERE) which featured Steve Carrell as the main villain. This one features the voice work of Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, and Brad Pitt.
The story: Megamind, the arch-villain of Metro Man, is in jail but he breaks out and is able to finally defeat Metro Man and take over the city. Except then he becomes bored. He realizes he needs a hero to fight, so he decides to create a superhero, Tighten, except that superhero becomes an even worse supervillain than Megamind. Also, Megamind in disguise begins to date Roxanne, a woman who hates the villainous Megamind. Then to svae the girl he loves Megamind has to become the cities hero and defeat Tighten.
Was it good?
Not really. it wasn't horrible, but it wasn't especially good either. The problem is the core of the story just isn't that compelling. It basically is a guy who gets what he wants and then becomes bored. That's not much of a story. And him falling in love and deciding to become a hero, while okay, isn't real compelling either. Compare that to the much better DESPICABLE ME where a super villain has lost his funding and must try to steal the moon to regain his line of credit, but is thwarted by a more successful supervillain and now must use three orphans to try to defeat this other supervillain. That's a heck of a lot more interesting than just someone trying not to be bored.
As a result just about everything works better in Desp-Me than in Megamind -- the jokes are funnier, the action scenes are more interesting, the characters are more interesting. It all comes from concept and story. The stronger the motivation, the more interesting the heart of the story, the easier it is to get everything else to work around it.
The two things MEGAMIND does have is some first rate animation and great voice work. The animation is fantastic and I'm a big fan of Will Farrell and Tina Fey, even if this isn't their most interesting work.
For adults, there isn't enough here to recommend. For kids, there is probably enough to keep them entertained even if it won't rank as a classic.
*** KIDS -- RECOMMEND, ADULTS -- RENTAL ****
Still the animation is first rate and I'm a fan of
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