Villainous Gru lives up to his reputation as a despicable, deplorable and downright unlikable guy when he hatches a plan to steal the moon from the sky. But he has a tough time staying on task after three orphans land in his care.
07 Jul Despicable Me (2010)
Foreground/Background
I see that I did not write a comment on this when it came out. I have since had kids and rewatched it recently, and am impressed by a couple key decisions.
The first is the quality of the animation and choices made in the story. At the time this was made, Pixar realism looked like the future of animation. ’Toy Story’ was a ’Snow White’ moment that changed everything. We’ve since learned that there is plenty of room ‘in the middle’ for so-so massively cheaper animation if the movie is fun. I do mean fun rather than good. ‘Brave’ was good but not fun.
So these French dudes embarked on a pretty risky thing at the time, and not using cheap animation shops. The main story has some charm, but less so than a similar experiment that failed, ‘Megamind’.
What makes this a success, and founded a franchise, is the Minions. The strange story is that the picture was greenlit and started with a different concept.
There’s a concept in comedy that the more you can build comedic dynamics into the world — a sort of funny fantasy magic — the fewer hard won foreground jokes you need. That world-building is what you need. Since ‘Star Wars’ (1977), ‘Jurassic Park’ (1993), Harry Potter (2001), and The Lego Movie (2014) folks in the business have become more aware of this.
But it seems that minions emerged late in the game after this started. Maybe this is the way to do it — to get in the zone and discover the world as you go. Either way, the result is brilliant enough to define an entire studio.
One thing that makes it work I think is that there is no backstory, no explanation, no connection with anything else in the film — it’s all cartoon tech. Minions just are.
Posted in 2024
Ted’s Evaluation — 3 of 3: Worth watching.
No Comments