Movie Review: Megamind

I love cliche-breakers. When someone decides to write a book or make a movie that’s unique and different, I get excited. Why? Because sometimes stories repeat each other. The ending, the beginning, the plot, the chosen one, the love triangle? Oh yeah, we’ve seen this before. What about the hero vs. the villain, from beginning to end? Yup. What about a villain winning over the hero? We call that a tragedy: old stuff. What about a hero destroying the villain and saving the day? Too often.

What about a villain who constantly needs a hero to fight and so he creates one, who becomes corrupt, and so the villain needs to save the city and in turn becomes the hero? Nope, never thought of it … ooh, we’ve got one over here!

His name is Megamind (Will Farrell). Ever since the day his parents sent him to Earth at a few months old to fulfill a destiny (don’t give me that “IT’S SUPERMAN” look), he’s been in conflict. Another baby from another planet beats him to Earth and becomes everyone’s hero. Throughout Megamind’s childhood, this hero, later to be known as Metro Man (Brad Pitt), wins the hearts of everyone … but this is because he saves the day from yet another one of Megamind’s mistakes. “Since all I’m good at is being bad,” Megamind vows, “I’ll be the biggest, baddest, boy yet.” Thus, his life as a pledged villain begins.

But then Megamind traps Metro Man and kills him, without knowing (because some of you may not have seen this movie, I’m not risking spoilers): his weakness happens to be copper, which is what he is trapped inside, and so he explodes. Megamind is delighted. But over time, he grows bored. His whole life was nothing but playing the villain against the hero … but now there’s no hero. Metro City has lost its Metro Man and its people are in the grips of the biggest, baddest villain … who only sits around all day moping.

Megamind comes up with a wonderful idea, however: He will create a “hero” to fight against and save Metro City from him! Little does he know how well his plan works; his hero becomes corrupted and threatens to destroy the whole Metro City and Megamind’s friends Roxanne Richie (Tina Fey) and his native planet fish Minion  … so it’s up to bald, huge headed, blue skinned Megamind, the baddest, blackest villain, to become the hero.

 

I think this may become one of my favorite animated movies up with How to Train Your Dragon. The characters and the plot are beautifully unique, and oh, the plot twists! In the beginning, we see that Megamind really isn’t a bad guy … he just sees being a villain as his only destiny because he happens to be the one who got into all the mistakes and accidents. At the end, he’s given a chance to rethink his destiny. Most of the humor radiated from his botching of well known words and his awkwardness at playing villain along with his “fishy sidekick.”

Roxanne Richie is now my favorite “damsel in distress,” and not just because I like her haircut. Megamind, with his mega powers to take the appearance of anyone, falls in love with Roxanne, who in turn, sees him as the librarian (Ben Stiller). Before the horrible truth is expressed, she simply tells Megamind/the librarian not to judge a book by its cover, when he asks her to suppose that he could be bald, big headed, and blue. When Megamind is in despair, thinking surely Metro City is near the end, she reminds him: “As long as there is evil, good will stand up to it.”

Megamind’s fish friend, Minion, has his own little robot body built by … well, why else is he called Megamind? This quirky little sidekick is loyal until things get confusing for him; what is really going on? His friend is keeping too much from him and so he disappears … but comes back to help Megamind at the end. Also, Metro Man is another favorite, as he gives Megamind a chance to become the hero … but saying more would be Spoiler City.

 

This movie is full of adventure, fun, romance, a great twist on good vs evil, and falling skyscrapers. It was released in 2010, and don’t ask me why I haven’t seen it until now. If you haven’t seen it, you should defnitely consider it; I knight it into my army of “4.5 out of 5” reviews. But if you’ve seen this, what’s your opnion? Let me know in the comments below.