Despicable me, Movie review

It was one of those movies I had not counted on actually go in seeing. not at all!
Before I went into see "Despicable me." with my little niece for her mother so her mother could have an evening off, my clear impression of the movie was that it had to be one of those cheap knock off's who things they are oh so smart, and can quickly make some bucks on a selling concept.
It's the first movie out of an entirely knew animations company "Illumination entertainment", and that is not enough for me to be excited at all, countless of companies have tried their luck with animation movies as it's a cheap way to make some movie money and so many have failed, I can count around five independent animation movie companies who have been forced to turn the key after two or three movies, and their movies have often seemed rather soulless, so that was exactly what I was expecting from this. all in all, I was expecting another "Planet 51" which again have a cool concept but is so filled with pretentious humour and stupid cliches's that that movie makes me cringe! that movie is like that annoying guy in the room who thinks he is funny as he keeps spitting out dump jokes without owning the thing called. "Comedic timing"

Well, after this big rant it should be obvious where I am going.. despicable me.. is not bad. It's actually very enjoyable. true, it's kind of predictable and we have seen this plot before, but it have a charm and passion to it that is undeniable, and it is genuinely funny. it's visual humour works and is not over selling itself.
Like dream works it's kind of like being Pixars naughty little brother, only if judging with this movie and the lates three or four Dream works movies.. I prefer this one, because even though it's filled with funny cliches'. my mind was very much brought to the spy 007 genre lots of times, it does not linger in it's own jokes and move on with the movie, the slapstic here also works, and believe me, I've seen so much animation slapstic that fails that it hurts me, so that made me very happy to see a studio that is not pixar actually mastering the small visual gags.

The movie is about the super villain Gru (which is kind of funny for me as "Gru" is the danish word for "Horror"... no seriously it is)
He is in a state of failish as he have been out contested by another villain who stole the pyramids, determinant to out villain this new comer Gru decides to steal the moon. only trouble is he needs a shrinking ray, he almost succeeded stealing it (in a well handed funny hyped scene) but finds himself once again beaten by the same guy who stole the pyramids, "Vektor"
Gru tries to steal the shrinking ray back but must realize that Vektor's super mega awesome oo7 agent style explosive lazer rocket filled intruder system is to much for him.

Which again leaves Gru even more annoyed as three orphant cookie sellers can walk into the property with no trouble as Vektor have a weakness for cookies.
This however give Gru an idea, adopt the girls and make them sell Vektor some cookies where he have infiltrated the cookie packages with cookie robots!

This is where the movie kind of jumps the track for me, because as the movie after 25 minutes of great hilarity and throw backs to the good old action movies does not have time for so much more of that as it's now about Gru learning to accept and eventually love these three girls.
Hi's scenes with them do swing from being genuinely funny to a bit to sugar sweet, thankfully we have the high points as he do steal the shrinking ray and by mistake gets trapped inside of Vektors high tech home so he have to escape using a great deal of physical gags, but the loving montage with the kids afterwards sort of spoils it, it's first from that point the movie gets to predictable. Though not heart less, I genuinly liked these girl, especially the oldest one which seemed like a little adult to me, who had taken on the cruel world in a bit to young an age to be able to shield the two younger once, that was kind of heart breaking to watch.
However, it's a genuine good movie, it's funny and nice, and it never lingers to much in anything, if you happen to get a chance to watch it, there is no shame in that. it's kind of worth it.