Megamind [DVD]

Funny, underrated movie with some intellectualism, critique of society and how some people can be marginalized-but entertaining

Fast delivery. Item received in good condition. Highly recommended 👍👍👍

One of our favorite family movies

great movie

I've seen this movie four times in two weeks. The last time I loved a movie enough to watch it that many times was in 1987, at the age of 13. I'm 37 now, and much more critical about quality in movies than I was then, and I tell you now that Megamind is a brilliant film.They Got It Right. This movie incorporates the best elements that we've all seen before, remarkably few flaws, and turns out a hilarious, intelligent movie with a lot of heart. And kid-safe, too, although adults will get a lot more of the in-jokes.First, the humor. This movie is just plain fun to watch! Just the right balance between silly-slapstick and witty irony, lots of hilarious one-liners, references to other sci-fi films and comics, and, rare for an animated film, tiny subtle shifts in body language that betray what a character is thinking without any words necessary.Next, the characters. All five of the main characters have a surprising amount of depth, making it easy to empathize with them, in part due to the gorgeous animation and incredibly realistic facial expressions. Megamind in particular has very expressive eyebrows, and you can literally see wrinkles appear in his forehead when he's upset, or smile lines in his cheeks when he gives that irrepressibly gleeful grin of his...you can't help but love him.The Story: Megamind begins the movie as a mischievous, fun-loving, blue-skinned alien super-genius with a crush on pixie-haired reporter Roxanne Ritchi, (whose cameraman, Hal, also has his sights set on her) and a love of playing "the game" with the other (human-looking) resident alien, Metroman. Metroman is not the typical Superman clone he appears to be at the beginning, either.Having been raised in the city prison, Megamind is inexperienced, almost innocent, about many things in the outside world, which is one more reminder for us of his outsider status despite his being culturally of Earth. His only companion is his best friend Minion, a loyal fish sent with him to Earth who wears a robot gorilla suit.The Twist: When Megamind unexpectedly wins the "game", he is at a loss. A surprise meeting with Roxanne while in disguise as a handsome museum curator abruptly changes the course of his life (and this movie!) Megamind experiences a phenomenal amount of character growth, a coming-of-age that is rife with hilarious zaniness and agonizing drama with a show-stopper finale ends on an incredibly satisfying note.There are several extras you'll want to check out; all the standard stuff plus a sweet-sad deleted scene, an animated comic book that lets you see some of the past battles between Megamind and Metroman, and a 16-minute short adventure (Button of Doom, either included on the Blu-ray or make sure to get the DVD set that has it!), set after the movie that has Megamind hilariously battling one of his own inventions!Gorgeous animation: The sheer amount of rich detail in this film make it worth watching many times. I highly recommend the Blu-ray, though, I watched a dvd version and you couldn't make out details like young Megamind's sheepish, sad-yet-hopeful smile in the class picture. And unlike several other reviewers, I didn't notice any aliasing at all, and I looked for it.All the characters have such tender attention to detail, including fingerprints, realistic freckles, and eyes that reflect different colors from the sources of light around them. I'm not a fan of weapon design, but Megamind's De-gun (a ray gun that has multiple functions, including dehydrating animate objects instantly so they shrink into small cubes) has what looks like decorative bronze insets in graceful curves, truly lovely to behold. The glass catwalks in the museum are beautiful, too.Who won't care for Megamind? In middle of the film is light on action and things blowing up, as Megamind learns to care for Roxanne while developing a plan centered around Hal, which could bore some die-hard action fans or young children.I also appreciate the lessons taught: The choices you make control your destiny, not fate. Intelligence will win out over brawn. Prejudice is wrong and unfair. Forgiveness. Redemption. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade...or giant robots!

good

Megamind is something of a mix, but a good one. On the one hand, it takes the existing traditional tropes of comic-book superhero and supervillain and works within them, but at the same time it ventures into territory that one rarely sees, going one step beyond the traditional to answer two questions: (1) What really makes a supervillain truly 'bad'? and (2) What happens when the supervillain unexpectedly wins?The film starts off with a traditional hook - Megamind apparently falling to his doom - and then flashes back to the beginning, with the origins of the two classic protagonists, superhero Metro Man and supervillain Megamind, each sent out as an infant in a spacepod from their respective doomed homeworlds. From there, however, things begin to take a twist. Megamind is the supervillain, but more from bad luck than anything else (Metro Man's pod lands in a mansion where he is adopted by rich parents who give him everything, Megamind's pod on the other hand lands in a penitentiary where he is adopted by the inmates). Megamind doesn't become a supervillain so much out of evil as much as lack of options, his main talent apparently being wreaking havoc and scaring the hell out of people. He and Metro Man become enemies/rivals in a series of confrontations where, in Megminds own words "Our battles quickly got more elaborate. He would win some, I would ALMOST win others!".And, in classic comic-book tradition, a plucky news reporter, Roxanne Ritchie, and her hapless and socially inept camerman, Hal Stewart, are always on the scene when one of Megamind's schemes unfolds, with the result that Roxanne gets abducted so many times that it becomes almost routine ("Alligators, yeah, mm-hmm. I was thinking about it on the way over...").But things take an unexpected twist when, in spite of all the glitches, Megamind's scheme actually works and Metro Man is apparently destroyed, leaving only a skeleton bearing his cape behind. At first Megamind is ecstatic, but after only a few days the supervillian finds himself at a loss as to what to do next. What _does_ a supervillain do when he has no superhero to challenge or to be challenged by?In his existiential angst, Megamind unexpectedly ends up talking to Roxanne, albeit disguised as Bernard, a museum attendent at the Metro Man Museum. From her, he gets the inspiration to create a new superhero to restore the balance in his life. Unfortunately his plan goes hideously awry when the recipient of his superhero formula turns out to be Hal, Roxanne's inept and all too flawed camerman.And once again the story turns back to the question of just what makes a supervillain truly bad. Hal isn't evil per se, but he is lazy, petulant, completely self-centered and prone to tantrums when he doesn't get his way. Highly destructive tantrums once he discovers that he, as the intended new superhero Titan, has powers that put him beyond anyone else's control. Jonah Hill as the voice of Hal/Titan manages to perfectly bring out these serious flaws in Titan's character that result in Titan becoming a far more menacing threat to society than the ostensibly 'evil' Megamind ever was.Craftsmanship-wise, everything in Megamind works well. The animation is colorful and eye-catching, the character design superb, and the voice actors distinctive and entertaining (Will Ferrell as Megamind, Brad Pitt as Metro Man, Tina Fey as Roxanne Ritchie, Jonah Hill as Hal Stewart/Titan, and David Cross as Minion). There are also a lot of references and in-jokes worked in, some fairly obvious (Minion's exo-suit with the diving helmet head and gorilla-like body are a direct take from the classicly-bad scifi film Robot Monster) and fairly subtle (the museum attendant Bernard is voiced by Ben Stiller, who played a museum guard named Bernard in the two Night At The Museum movies).Though the film was released at the theaters in 3D, you won't miss a thing seeing it on a DVD. Quite frankly, the whole 3D thing is a waste in most movies that have come out with it and Megamind is no exception.Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys good animation with entertaining characters and story.

Cute movie that breaks tropes in the best possible waysWe need more movies like thisA true classic