Despicable Me (film)

Despicable Me
File:Despicable me 1.jpg Teaser poster
Directed by	Pierre Coffin Chris Renaud Sergio Pablos
Written by	Ken Daurio Cinco Paul
Produced by	John Cohen Janet Healy Chris Meledandri
Starring	Steve Carell Jason Segel Russell Brand Julie Andrews Will Arnett Kristen Wiig Miranda Cosgrove Dana Gaier Elsie Fisher
Edited by	Gregory Perler Pam Ziegenhagen
Music by	Heitor Pereira Pharrell Williams Hans Zimmer
Production company	Illumination Entertainment
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	July 9, 2010 (2010-07-09)
Running time	95 minutes
Land	Vereinigte Staaten
Sprache	Englisch
Budget	$69 million
Box office	$185,576,462

Despicable Me is a 2010 American computer-animated 3-D feature film from Universal Studios and Illumination Entertainment that was released on July 9, 2010 in the United States with considerable critical and financial success. The film stars Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews, Will Arnett, Kristen Wiig, and Miranda Cosgrove.

The story is of a supervillain named Gru who plans to use three orphan girls as pawns for a grand scheme, only to find that their innocent love is profoundly changing him.

Plot

When a busload of tourists stops at the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, a boy named Justin accidentally falls onto it to discover that it has been stolen and replaced by an inflatable rubber duplicate. News of the theft shocks and puzzles the world.

In the middle of a suburban neighborhood sits a black house with a dead lawn. Unbeknownst to the neighbors, hidden deep beneath this home is the vast secret hideout of the super villain Gru (Steve Carell) and his army of "minions," which are yellow pill-shaped humanoids in overalls and goggles. When he learns of the Pyramid theft, his pride is badly wounded and he resolves to pull the biggest heist in world history: stealing the Moon. Gru tries to get a loan from the local Bank of Evil (formerly Lehman Brothers), where he meets Vector (Jason Segel), and finds out that it was Vector who stole the pyramid. Mr. Perkins (Will Arnett), the bank president, refuses to give Gru a loan until he obtains the shrink ray necessary for the plan. As Gru leaves the bank, he shoots Vector in the head with his freeze ray while he is busy reloading his piranha launcher.

Gru and his minions steal the shrink ray from a secret lab in East Asia, but Vector promptly steals it from him as revenge for freezing his head; Gru attempts to get it back, but is unable to get inside Vector's lair. After seeing three orphaned girls named Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier), and Agnes (Elsie Fisher) get into Vector's lair to sell cookies, Gru adopts them in order to use them to steal back the shrink ray. Vector has placed a large cookie order, and Gru has his assistant, Doctor Nefario (Russell Brand), build several cookie-shaped robots to slip into the boxes. The cookie robots are designed to help steal the shrink ray from Vector's vault. The theft nearly fails when the robots seal Gru inside the vault, but he and his minions eventually escape through the main entrance.

On the way home, the girls ask to go an amusement park called Funland; Gru agrees to take them, intending to leave the girls there, but bonds with them during the trip. Back at home, he fine-tunes his plan and presents it to Mr. Perkins, who surprises him by again refusing him the loan. Perkins then tells Vector (revealed to be his son Victor, who named himself after the mathematical term) that Gru has the shrink ray. Though Gru is ready to abandon his plan due to lack of funds, the girls and the minions take up a collection to keep it going. As work continues on the plan, Nefario begins to see the girls as a distraction and has them sent back to the orphanage, breaking Gru's heart.

The heist falls on the same day that the girls are to participate in a ballet recital. Gru shrinks the Moon, pockets it, and rushes back to Earth only to find that the recital has ended. In the seat that the girls reserved for him, he finds a note from Vector, who has kidnapped the girls, telling him to bring the moon. After forcing Gru to hand over the moon, Vector leaves Earth in an escape pod with the girls still inside. Gru pursues them and nearly falls back to Earth, but is rescued by Dr. Nefario, who reveals that the effects of the shrink ray are not permanent; the greater the mass of an object before shrinking, the faster the effect wears off. As Gru gives chase to Vector, the effects of the shrink ray on the Moon wear off, causing the Moon to grow and smash open the cell holding the girls. Gru rescues them with the help of his minions, while the (rapidly-expanding) Moon wrecks Vector's controls so that his pod rockets the moon back into orbit.

Gru and the girls settle down to live a happy life as a family, while Vector is stranded on the Moon. The girls give a special recital for the minions, Gru, and his mother (Julie Andrews), who finally tells him she is proud of him. The music changes and everyone present rushes onstage to dance.

Cast

• Steve Carell as Gru, the world's former #2 super villain. He at first only adopted the girls so he could steal the shrink ray but later warms up to the girls and finally becomes their adoptive father.
• Jason Segel as Vector (a.k.a. Victor Perkins), the world's new #1 super villain and. He has a penchant for inventing weaponry that launches underwater life.
• Russell Brand as Dr. Nefario, Gru's elderly, hearing impaired scientist assistant. It is hinted that he is Gru's father, but Gru only refers to him as "good friend"
• Julie Andrews as Gru's mother.
• Will Arnett as Mr. Perkins, the Supervillain Bank president and Vector's father.
• Kristen Wiig as Miss Hattie, mistress of a local orphanage called House of Girls. For the most part she seems to hate her job and sees the girls more as an irritation than anything else.
• Miranda Cosgrove as Margot (pronounced Margo), the oldest girl of the group of orphans. She is, for a majority of the film, untrusting of Gru. But she later learns to grow close to Gru and her sisters feel the same way.
• Dana Gaier as Edith, the middle girl of the group of orphans. She likes gross things and wears a pink beanie. She is the only one of the girls to think that Vector's and Gru's inventions and weapons were "cool". Many people who have watched "Despicable Me" think she is to be considered a "tomboy".
• Elsie Fisher as Agnes, the youngest girl of the group of orphans. She loves unicorns and likes Gru from the start.
• Pierre Coffin as Tim / Bob / Mark / Phil / Stuart, five of Gru's minions.
• Chris Renaud as Dave, one of Gru's minions
• Ken Jeong as Talk Show Host
• Danny R. McBride as Fred McDade, Gru's next door neighbor.
• Jack McBrayer as Tourist Father / Carnival Barker
• Mindy Kaling as Tourist Mother
• Jemaine Clement as Jerry, one of Gru's minions.
• Rob Huebel as Anchorman / Newscaster
• Ken Daurio as Egyptian Guard
• Philip Mathew as Second Egyptian Guard and the super villain Philip Mathew
• Additional Voices as all of Gru's minions

Music

The score to Despicable Me was composed by Hans Zimmer, Heitor Pereira, and Pharrell Williams recorded with a 67-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox. Lupe Fiasco and Robin Thicke also recorded songs for the film.

Release

Marketing

Sneak peeks were also shown in episodes of The Biggest Loser. It was also featured on Last Comic Standing when Gru comes in to audition. There has also been a minion that came in to audition, but he was mute for the duration.

IHOP restaurants are promoting the film by introducing three new menu items, a kids' breakfast meal, and a drink all having the word "minion" in them.

Short advertisements were run on USA during recent NCIS marathons where the main character Gru says that a threatening series of letters is his own name G-R-U.

Best Buy has released a free smartphone application called "Movie Mode" that translates what the Minions are saying during the credits of the movie. Special content can be unlocked from the application after seeing the movie.

Reception

Critical response

The film has received generally positive reviews from critics. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 79% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 140 reviews, with an average score of 6.9/10. The critical consensus is: Borrowing heavily (and intelligently) from Pixar and Looney Tunes, Despicable Me is a surprisingly thoughtful, family-friendly treat with a few surprises of its own. Among "Top Critics," comprising critics from the top newspapers and other publications, the film holds an approval rating of 87% based on 32 reviews. Metacritic, another review aggregation website, assigned the film a score of 72%, based on 34 reviews from mainstream critics.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times praised the film, awarding it three stars out of a possible four. Other positive reviews came from Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune and Peter Travers of Rolling Stone.

In contrast, A. O. Scott of the New York Times disliked the film, stating "while there's nothing worth despising, there's not much to remember either." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "there's nothing in this to engage an audience. Obviously, no one cares if this guy gets to remain as the world's top bad guy. Nor is this situation inherently amusing in a character way or even interesting in a satirical or sardonic way. There is simply nothing here, except a pretext for lots of labored, slapstick spy-versus-spy type shenanigans between the two 'villains.' Twenty minutes into "Despicable Me," nothing has happened."

Box office

Released on July 9, 2010, in the United States, Despicable Me opened exceptionally strong. The film came in at the number one spot at the box office and pulled in $56.3 million, making it the third biggest opening grossing for an animated film in 2010 behind Toy Story 3 and Shrek Forever After. In its second weekend, the film dipped 42% to second place behind Inception with $32.8 million earned. The film then only dropped 27% in its third weekend and finished in third place with $23.8 million. In three weeks of release, the film has earned $164 million domestically, making it a huge box office hit.

The film performed weakly in the international market, earning $17.4 million so faroverseas for a total of nearly $182 million worldwide. This is because it has not yet opened in most international markets, having opened in Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Ukraine so far. It is set to open in bigger markets such as Germany, Russia and the UK in the coming months.

Sequel

Chris Meldandris said that a sequel is in the works.

External links

• Official website
• Despicable Me at IMDb
• Template:Bcdb title
• Despicable Me at Box Office Mojo
• Despicable Me at Rotten Tomatoes
• Despicable Me at Metacritic