Okay, so I noticed everyone else except me has done a review. Since I have been on a movie tear lately (7 movies in 36 hours) I have decided to review an interesting selection on my list. The first day of my movie quest I watched
Amelie,
Winters Bone and
A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop (
三枪拍案惊奇). Second day I watched
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, L'Illusionniste, Boys in Love and
Megamind. Also I rented Epic Mickey, which is chock full of old school Disney references and has unfortunately one of the stupidest titles ever.
The movie I am going to review is Megamind for I think it does something different from its Shrek counterpart. I will do my review based on a few categories: Stylization and Imagery, Acting, Music and Popular Culture References.
MEGAMIND (2010)
DREAMWORKS PICTURES, INC
Summary: The supervillain Megamind finally conquers his nemesis, the hero Metro Man... but finds his life pointless without a hero to fight. (IMDB)
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL1rf9TsXzE&feature=related (Worth noting that some of the stuff that happens in the trailer isn't actually in the film.)
Stylization and Imagery:
Stylization is the restriction of the image to a certain form to create a fidelity between image and image construction. Why I put this with imagery is that in animated film it is important to create a flow between abstract realism and fidelity. The image cannot work if Mickey Mouse is in the same frame as a Pokemon, it just doesn't make sense. Dreamworks unfortunately has a problem with this especially in the Shrek movies. Sometimes the image makes sense, but human Fiona does not look like she fits in with Shrek as a result of her facial features. How to Train Your Dragon had probably some of the best stylization since Toy Story 3, so I had high expectations for this film.
The story concerns a villain becoming a hero after losing his hero. Honestly, I picked up this film based on the 'cuteness' factorial of superheros+TinaFey=Oh yeah. I had no idea what the plot was so I was kind of surprised when the hero died in the beginning of the film. You even see his skeleton and everything. I was unprepared for the villain to have an existential crisis while watching this film, where I was like "Qua? I thought this was a kids film?" There are heavy themes of death, abandonment and overall life satisfaction.
It would make sense wherein the filmmakers would soften the images in order for these overweighing themes would pervade. The images were simplistic and easy to recognize. Not too much extraneous detail and the animation looks like it took about a year from storyboard to sound checks. Nice to note that Jeffrey Katzenberg is the CEO of Dreamworks Animation after working at Disney Animation during the Renaissance. He is much more into profit than 'art,' unlike Pixar which takes at least three years to complete a film. I am not against trying to get more money for other more artistic projects, like How To Train Your Dragon, by making Madagascar 2.
The stylization was clunky sometimes, not really explaining certain character details. At a certain point his minion goes from just a fish in bowl to this: http://images.wikia.com/dreamworks/images/2/2c/340x_mm-cg-minion-02.jpg. Also, they had characters named Minion in Despicable Me, coincidence? I think not. Anyway, this character design for used for one joke, but I'll get back to that later. This is what bothered me most about this film is that costuming and sometimes even minute character actions are used for cheap jokes and don't really fit into the film. I call bullshit on simplistic animation, for animated films that have money and time at their disposal should take it a notch because Dreamworks isn't winning the animation Oscars.
Acting
Since this film is full of recognizable names I decided to see if the fidelity of their voice and acting talents fit into the film. Starting with my future husband Brad Pitt as MetroMan. I was pleasantly surprised to find that his voice and the character fit well. My initial apprehension is that the actual hero of MetroMan looked more like George Clooney than Brad Pitt. To my surprise Brad Pitt did a good job and was of course strikingly handsome. Jonah Hill was in the same boat with good voice acting matching the character. David Cross was David Cross.
My main problem is with the casting of Will Ferrell as Megamind and Tina Fey as Lois Lane (not real name, just the archetype she is playing). Will Ferrell is funny and silly naturally and so is Tina Fey. However, I envisioned the character of Megamind to be sly and goofy only because of the crazy environment he inhabits. Tina Fey is goofy, silly and wild while also being smart, and frankly not the best dramatic actress but a good comedic one. Lois Lane is calm, cool and collected with a dash of panache, but no silly characteristics.
What bothered me throughout the film was the miscasting of these people. Will Ferrell and Tina Fey were miscast. Honestly any velvety voiced actress like Kim Basinger or Halle Berry could have played the role, but I guess Tina Fey brought more of a down home silly flair to it. I wish they made her character a bit more silly and less serious so Tina Fey's comedic flair could shine. Will Ferrell, on the other hand, was miscast for I wanted the character to be more nuanced and not the detriment of Will Ferrell as an actor, but he is just too broad and silly.
This is what I call stunt casting, which has been a phenomenon since The Lion King. It is annoying only because I honestly don't give a what about who is in the movie. The benefits of stunt casting are 90% for the parents so they can recognize their favorite adult star. This is a movie where I would like people who are professional voice actors to star for they would probably be better at controlling their voice in a way to shape the character in an appropriate manner.
Music and Popular Culture
Dreamworks, babe, doll, Stop. Yes, AC/DC and Blondie did have some great songs that defined actions of characters in OTHER movies. Now they are distractions and pop up every like 5 minutes. It's annoying. It does not add to the film. I know copyright law and it is cheaper to hire an orchestra and copyright your own music. You are using the lazy method wherein your company already owns part of the film rights. STOP. One or two songs is fine. No more than that.
Popular culture references in kids movies are becoming a scourge, so that is why I liked How to Train Your Dragon. It had maybe one thickly covered pop culture reference, so the film felt refreshing. This film kept on throwing out pop culture references. It's not really that funny to make fun of Mr. Miyagi when everyone else does it. Point more fun at your own inanity with cleverly thought out description and dialogue. Do the funny nuances in character thing. IT WORKS.
Overall Rating: 7.5/10
I know this seems high after my scathing review, but the film is honestly enjoyable. I am sitting here at work wanting to watch it again which is the point of popular consumerist media. At some points I actually lolled which is rare for me. Overall the film is actually worth watching, because the themes of the film actual impactful and now makes me want to write my superhero script even more. I didn't comment on the plot, because I didn't want to give anything away but there is something there that is kind of astonishing for a kids film. Honestly if they bump up their animation and become more like How to Train Your Dragon and less Despicable Me I think they have a shot of competing with Disney.
