Evil Masterminds! Colossal Thefts! Minions and a Photocopier!

"Despicable Me"
IMDB.com (Universal Pictures, 2010)

"...When a criminal mastermind uses a trio of orphan girls as pawns for a grand scheme, he finds himself profoundly changed by the growing love between them...."

" 'Despicable Me' turns Universal into a digital animation film player"
MiamiHerald.com (July 23, 2010)

"For Universal Pictures, all it took was some puny yellow minions to tackle the giants of animation.

"The studio's movie 'Despicable Me,' about a villain who enlists an army of yapping subordinates to assist in his nefarious deeds, racked up $118.4 million in its first 10 days at the box office, granting Universal something that has long eluded it: a family-friendly animated blockbuster.

"Such a windfall represents a turning point for the General Electric Co.-owned studio, which has lagged behind rivals Pixar Animation Studios, DreamWorks Animation and 20th Century Fox's Blue Sky Studios in establishing a foothold in the increasingly popular genre of digitally animated movies...."

I saw "Despicable Me" over the weekend. IMDB.com shows the film's rating as "Rated PG for rude humor and mild action." Fair enough. The humor is rather rude, and the action is mild - although that roller-coaster ride, wearing 3D glasses, was just short of gastrologically unsettling. Moving along.

I agree with the Miami Herald's assessment, that it's "family-friendly" - but that's me, and my family. With well upwards of 6,000,000,000 people around, there's probably someone, somewhere, who's offended, appalled, affronted, or insulted by the movie. What off-duty Minions were doing with the photocopier, for example, will almost certainly set somebody off.

The rest of us, I think, can sit back and enjoy the show. I'd call it "heartwarming:" but first, the term's been overused; and second, with all those flammable chemicals in Gru's lab, somebody might get the wrong idea.

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• "The Neutrinos are Coming! 2012 and Hollywood Science"
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