best movie i've ever seen.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Introducing a likable cartoon villain and his iconic, adorable sidekick, Despicable Me birthed a new franchise for Illumination. Gru (Steve Carell) is a villainous character who pops balloons in front of kids and uses his freeze ray to cut in line at the coffee shop. His ultimate plan is to steal the moon using a rocket ship and a shrink ray. With the help of his little yellow minions and the inventor Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand), he can manage most of the work but would still need a loan from the Bank of Evil. Gru has a hard time living up to the villain standard and disappoints his mother (Julie Andrews). When a new villain Vector (Jason Segel) and steals a pyramid, Gru finds it harder to impress the banker Mr. Perkins (Will Arnett) and receive a loan for his rocket.A group of orphan girl Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier), and Agnes (Elsie Fisher) try to sell Gru cookies but he pretends to be a recording. Gru must first steal a shrink ray but when he does, he finds that Vector is one step ahead of him. The only way for Gru to get inside Vector's lair and past all of the booby traps is to adopt the orphans and send them in with robotic cookies. He finds that having three girls in his house turns out to be more difficult than he thought as they terrify his dog-like creature, goof around with the minions, and touch all of his villainous equipment. He does manage to steal the shrink ray from Vector but has to take the girls to their dance class first.Check out more of this review and others at swilliky.com

This is one of the most interesting animated films I have seen in recent years. Its not the first time we see a villain portrayed in a comic way on animated movies, but its rare to see one become a real hero (well, in fact, "Megamind", from the same year, tackles the same theme in a different way).The film revolves around the figure of a failed villain who tries to steal the Moon, despite the constant interference of three girls he adopts and the competition with a new rival. The film also has the Minions, the villain's helpers. These adorable creatures speak an incomprehensible language and look curiously like cheese snacks in jeans, but they star in some of the film's most hilarious and absurd moments. The humor is intelligent, not forced or stupid and knows when to give way to the story in order to keep the film coherent and with a good rhythm. All the characters were very well thought out. Computer animation, the basis of animations, has been carefully done, is very pleasing to eye of the public and inspires a pleasant sense of realism.

I can't say enough good things about this movie. I started watching it great skepticism. I knew I was NOT going to like it. I knew I was going to HATE the minions, and I truly believed I would define the movie in one word: stupid.BOY WAS I WRONG....in fact, as soon as it was over, I couldn't wait to watch part 2..and when that was over, I was looking for part 3 (glad to know that we will have that in 2017).My wife said to me yesterday, "You watched both?" LOL...she was incredulous that I had done so with such speed...I mean I do have a life....I have a career, and own a business, so she wondered when I had time....I MADE TIME! I think by now you know I would HIGHLY recommend this movie. It is funny, fun and certainly keeps your interest. It's like a good book that you can't put down....just EXCELLENT!(PS I love the minions)

At a time when we had the likes of 'Toy Story 3' and 'How to Train Your Dragon', a time when Pixar and Dreamworks ruled supreme (Pixar winning of course), along came Illumination Entertainment and gave us this supervillain animation.The plot is pretty unoriginal really, jumping on the over used superhero theme. A supervillain is getting old and rusty, losing his flare for evil, at the same time a younger new supervillain threatens his status. So he devises a plan to steal the moon, the greatest feat of supervillainy he can come up with. But in order to carry out this plan he must enlist (adopt) the help of three very young little girls.The whole superhero concept has been popular now for quite some time and in CGI animation its no different. Along with other similar flicks such as 'The Incredibles' and 'Megamind' the whole idea is beginning to feel a little swamped I can't deny. This film mainly centres on the supervillains point of view, how he lives, his daily habits, his job being an evil mastermind etc...a nice angle that was original until later in the year when 'Megamind' came out.At his side are an army of little yellow minions that look like old 8-bit video game characters not too dissimilar from Pac-Man. Now at first these little guys are quite amusing with their pratfalls, face slapping and general simple minded tomfoolery, but it wears thin fast. Their whole routine is the same all the way through the film and I'm sure even kids may tire of it. I'm not even sure what the hell they are suppose to be seeing as all other characters in this film are human.I really liked the initial idea of this film and the start, I loved Gru's big Gothic house squeezed in between a line of regular houses. I liked his outrageously over sized supervillain vehicle, his little demon-like dog and the interior of his lair which was like a cross between James Bond and Hammer horror. Lots of ingenious gadgets, secret doors/trap doors etc...in a thick Gothic German expressionist-like design.Unfortunately the film becomes way too sickly and sweet for me (yes I know its for kids mainly). After he adopts the three little girls and starts to realise he enjoys them being around, losing sight of his evilness, it just becomes quite lame frankly. The film isn't sure what it wants to be or where its going, even the humour begins to lag.In the end all we're left with is a semi decent animated film which does look glorious no doubt, but with a plot that can't decide which route to go down. None of the characters are particularly interesting or fun, Steve Carell doesn't help make the evil Gru any more memorable and the old scientist character that works with him is dreadful!. He's actually quite scary looking I think, plus with that awful cockney accent from Brand...utter fail.Very wishy washy kids film that struggles to keep you interested and in no way competes with the big guns. Clearly trying to be zany and full of fresh ideas but you can see its not really worked out, its not a bad film, its just rather flat and anti climatic. How on earth this film was popular I don't know, the sequel was no surprise but I just don't see the hype over this.5/10