Just started watching Despicable Me. It seems like it might be a fun movie, but... well, let's say they are wearing their influences on their sleeves. In fact, only in the first five minutes, they managed to rip off Toy Story, Austin Powers, and Addams Family. Quite an accomplishment! :-)
Of course anybody will tell you that there is a big grey area between "ripping off", "being inspired by", and "paying homage to", and perhaps we were meant to see the influences, not sure.
Anyway, there are many jokes, tons in fact, and many of them are very funny. Only it makes the story a bit hard to follow, because there is a new joke about every seven seconds, and they are all maximized, none of them are subtle, so the actual story takes a distant second place to them. This is unlike, say, one of the Toy Story movies, which are about the story, and the jokes are all in service of it.
... Having watched on a bit, though, I must say that it gets really entertaining, particularly as the setup gets done with and the main story gets underway, with the three likkle orphan girls juxtaposed hilariously against main character Gru's wilful villainy.
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By the way, have you noticed? in the past few years, Hollywood people getting interviewed are taking more chances in their humor, and to my taste at least, often losing. In other words, they often air really nasty digs at others, and sound like they mean it. It's probably the fashion in Hollywood now, to out-nasty each other. I think they should have a think though, for the rest of the world is not used to it, and they really often come off as being not very pleasant and not funny.
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