For a very, very long time, there have been two CGI-based film studios that have always stolen the limelight ahead of the others, and produced incredible animated films that have seen a massive gross revenue. These two companies are obviously Pixar and Dreamworks, with the former being one of the most successful companies in all of film. But last night I saw the first film of a new company, Illumination Entertainment, and their film Despicable Me, and finally someone is properly challenging for the top.
With Pixar and Dreamworks, their debut feature length films were top class, with the former releasing one of their most successful films Toy Story in 1995, and the latter starting out with Antz in 1998. I first saw the trailer for Despicable Me over a year ago (yes, a year!) when I mentioned the film in my old blog in August 2009. Ever since I saw that trailer I have been intrigued as this is the debut film from a new company and I was pleasantly surprised when I finally got the chance to see it.
The voice talent on show is very impressive, with Steve Carrell in the lead role, Russell Brand coming in as Gru's assistant Dr. Nefario, and Jason Segel and Julie Andrews rounding off the main cast. The story sees Gru trying to retain top position as bad guy in the world, with a ingenious plan to steal the moon. But there is one man on his tail, Vector (Segel) who is the younger, upcoming villain, going into top place after stealing the Great Pyramid of Giza.
There are a lot of cute jokes to keep the kids entertained, with the minions being reminisent of the aliens from Toy Story, the writers clearly knew how to keep their target audience entertained. But that's not to say that there wasn't jokes for the older audience. A few clever jokes including a reference to the Lehman Brothers made me laugh, but I felt that my friend and I were the only ones in a cinema of about 25 who understood the pun.
Another thing about the film, that usually gets to me, is that it was impossible to see the film in 2D, but as I wanted to see the film for a while, I bared it and donned my 3D glasses. Like I mentioned in a post a couple of months ago, 3D seems to work well for animated films, and this film proved that. There is a credits sequence made just for 3D, while during the film I was just engrossed in the story that the 3D didn't really effect me too much.
Overall, the film is definitely worth a watch, and so is the company. Being a debut film, the film didn't have much to show for other productions apart from one teaser trailer for a release in April titled Hop, in which the trailer feature the minions from Despicable Me! Something tells me they're not too far in production with that film. But it's still a film I'll be going to see.
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