Review: Megamind

By Brynmor Pattison

Director: Tom McGrath

Cast: Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill

Certificate: PG

Run time: 95 mins

These days if an animated film is not Pixar-made, it’s going to go one of two ways – it’s either both heartwarming and poorly animated, or has perfect budget-busting animation with no storyline.  Thankfully, Megamind is the first outside film for years to fall into both of these categories.  Will Ferrell’s curious humour manages to seep into this film too, proving that even with the bushy hair and odd expressions he’s not just a visual comedian.  The supporting cast lends enough class to the film you tend to forget that this should be a child’s exercise in delight.

Megamind (Ferrell) is a typical evil supervillain bent on world domination, with a (sort of) trusty sidekick called Minion constantly by his side.  Constantly challenging the hero Metro Man (Pitt) in Metro City, the film focuses on what happens when the evil genius finally gets what he wants.  How will he cope without a good guy to balance out his evil deeds? Thrown into the mix is the excellent Tina Fey playing the female interest, Roxanne Ritchi, a news reporter.

Cue plenty of offbeat jokes from Ferrell and co., while the story rumbles along quite smoothly, finishing after a leisurely hour and a half.  While I don’t imagine it will challenge Pixar’s throne at the head of animation, the brains behind Megamind will be looking to keep this sort of form up.  Megamind is yet another supposed kids’ film that adults will make their children go and see.