Despicable Me is a 2010 Animated movie from Universal pictures and is directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud and features the voices of Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Kristen Wiig, Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier and Will Arnett.

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The Plot:

Gru ( Steve Carell ) is a super-villain always looking to achieve his next grand success, along with his partner Dr Nefario ( Russell Brand ) and his thousands of little yellow minions, he operates out of his secret lair which is fronted by his fairly normal looking suburban home

Gru's pride however takes a severe battering when an unknown super villain steals the great pyramid of Giza before he can, so he formulates a plan to shrink the earths moon, a plan he has developed since childhood, needing to steal a secret shrink ray from an asian base, he also needs money to be able to develop a space-ship to get to the moon, so he goes to the Bank of Evil to obtain a loan, however the Bank Manager, Mr Perkins ( Will Arnett ) refuses to loan him the money, saying his schemes lose more money than they make for the bank, and he will only loan him the money when Gru can successfully steal the shrink ray.

Gru does indeed successfully steal the weapon, however in the process of fleeing with it, its is stolen from him by Vector ( Jason Segel ), the same villain who stole the Pyramid, realising that he needs to steal it back, he notices a trio of young orphans who are able to gain access into Vector's lair while selling him cookie's, and so Gru decides to pose as a Dentist in order to adobt the girls, however very soon after Gru begins to see the girls as more than just a way to steal back the weapon !

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Despicable me impressed me alot, I was expecting great things as I had heard alot of hype when this movie was originally released, and we ended up sitting down one saturday night and renting it on demand.

You can tell the creators borrowed heavily from Pixar and Dreamworks, I would say the biggest direct inspiration for the movie is probably Pixar's "The Incredibles" which I think it shares some similarities with, however its just as good a movie in its own right, the animation is crisp and the way the characters are structured, in particular Gru with his long thin legs and overbearing body offers a fresh visual appeal to the characters.

The voice actors do a terrific job, in particular the always funny Steve Carell who lays on a thick Russian / Eastern European accent to further emphasize the dark side of the character, and also Russell Brand is good as the Dr Nefario character and deepens his voice enough where it was hard to place if it was actually his voice.

Plotwise it is obviously a little predictable and we all knew how it was going to finish, however this is after all a kids movie and should have some level of predictability to it, but overall they did a wonderful job with Despicable me and it would provide great entertainment for children and adults alike.