Despicable Me

From the desk of The Movie Snob

Despicable Me (B). The name of this animated movie and the trailers for it that I saw a hundred times were both strikes against it. But it got a good review in the Dallas Morning News, so I was game for it. Steve Carell (The 40-Year Old Virgin) voices a villain named Gru. Although he aspires to supervillainy, he doesn't really have what it takes. (Instead of stealing the actual Statue of Liberty, he steals the one from New York, New York in Las Vegas.) To accomplish his supreme feat of supervillainy--stealing the moon itself--he first needs to steal a shrinking-ray gun from rival villain Vector. Here's where the real beating heart of the movie, which is totally missing from the trailers, comes in--to get access to Vector's lair, Gru adopts three adorable little orphan girls who have sold Vector a bunch of cookies and will be admitted to the lair when they deliver them to him. If you don't think the girls will melt Gru's heart--eventually--you don't know movies. I saw the 3-D version, but it didn't add a whole lot, in my opinion.