Despicable Me (2010) Movie Review

Despicable Me has reignited my love for animated films. I've recently lost interest in animated films for unknown reasons but Despicable Me and How To train Your Dragon have started to win me over again. Despicable Me isn't trying to be anything oscar worthy, but it most certainly should get a lot of praise for being a fun ride from start to finish.

Gru (Steve Carell) is a skilled mega villain who is distressed to find out that an other villain is stealing his spotlight. Vector is the irritating new guy who seems to be able to outsmart and out maneuver Gru at every occasion. When the idea to shrink the moon arises, both guys fight over a shrink gun that will allow them to become the best super villain on earth. Gru must use three little orphan girls in order to steal the shrink gun from Vector but he gets more than he bargain for from them.

Despicable Me looks funny in its animation design and has a great script aswell. We get some great voice work from Steve Carell and Jason Segel. Carell does a fine job at as the evil villain with a heart thats gonna be melted. I must say though that Russell Brand's voice work is almost unrecognizable fro the Dr. Nefario character. Brand is usually anything but unnoticeable. I mentioned the look of the film previously and although it's over the top in its style, it has a lot of attention to detail. The character design is really nice, especially the youngest of three orphans called Agnes.

The way the three girls change Gru from emotionless Scrooge, to a loving softy, is typically tackled but enjoyable nonetheless. However the films biggest laughs come from the little yellow minions who are weird and wacky, but classic creations that had the audience around me in tears. The humour is undoubtably amiable and simple but I belive the oldest to the youngest movie goer will love it. If you haven't seen Despicable Me yet, do yourself a favour and see it even if its only for the priceless minions.

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Skyline (2010) Movie Review

I look out the window and I see something coming from the skyline. Is it a bird, a plane or is it actually superman for a change, no its a really dull movie. But it's not as bad as most professional or paid critics say it is, but it's still one of the lamest films of the year. Aliens invade the world and we follow a group of wealthy Los Angeles residents, that are trying to survive the invasion.

To put it straight, Skyline is just plain bland and unexciting. It hasn't a single interesting or even briefly memorable character. The actors that star in this film are mostly unknowns and im sure after this display they will remain unknown. The acting is not entirely woeful, but at times its laughable. The only two recognizable actors are David Zayas (from Dexter) and Donald Faison (Scrubs) and they do adequate work here, considering the bad material.

The pace of the film is a big fat mess. The alien invasion occurs within the first 30 seconds of the film, which arguably is a thought out directorial decision. But when you see the 90 minutes that is to follow, you realise that no, it's really just bad pacing. You are subjected to stupid dialogue and remarkably boring characters, these are so bad that the alien attacks are welcomed because they means these boring people will die.

The CGI here is actually pretty impressive and these effects elevate this film above the gutter. We see sweeping shots of a burning L.A, hundreds of people being sucked into a spaceship and massive alien insects. The action sequences are quite cool here, with a pretty epic jet attack on an alien mothership. The special effects were obviously what the film was advertised with and they seem to be the only thing that time was invested in.

Skyline was met poorly by critics and I see the reasons for much of that cold reception. The film hasn't a single genuine piece of dialogue throughout it, but it does have some state of the art CGI. Who needs good story telling or character development anyway.

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Monsters (2010) Movie Review

One thing I don't like is hype, when it's paraded around a film. Gareth Edward's Monsters got some major hype before its release and even though I think the film stands on its own quite well, I think the hype was over the top.

Its been six years since an alien species has invaded earth and the film follows a journalist named Andrew, (Scoot McNairy) who is assigned the responsibility to take an american tourist Samantha (Whitney Able) back home. To do this they must cut through an infected area of Mexico. As the journey goess on the two grow closer to each other.

Monsters gives off quite an unusal feeling when I watched it. On the one hand, I felt myself getting restless because it never really does anything that interesting with its quite exciting set up. But on the other hand I was drawn to the core relationship between Samantha and Andrew. The film may be called Monsters but the massive creatures that are in the film, are rarely seen and in the end, are quite pointless. I went into the film expecting a Monster movie, but what I got was a very bizarre romantic road trip, with some big squids walking around in the background.

The performances from the two leads are pitch perfect. Whitney Able is really impressive here, as she gives this pondering film a heart. Her relationship with McNairy is very real and interesting but it ultimately ends in a very unsatisfactory way. The idea of having this relationship mixed with massive monsters is not actually a bad idea, but it is a bad move here because the monsters never really effect the lead characters lives other than they meet because of the alien infection area.

Even though I was left a little short-changed at the end of Monsters, I also enjoyed much of the film. The scenery and locations are shot beautifully and the two leads impress greatly, it's just a pity that they weren't apart of a more meaningful movie.

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