20 Wednesday Mar 2013
Directors: Kirk De Micco, Chris Sanders
Voices: Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone
Plot: The world’s very first prehistoric family goes on a road trip to an uncharted and fantastical world.
Release Dates: March 22nd (USA, UK)
16 Saturday Mar 2013
Director: Chris Wedge
Voices: Amanda Seyfried, Josh Hutcherson, Beyoncé Knowles
Plot: A teenager finds herself transported to a deep forest setting where a battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil is taking place. She bands together with a rag-tag group characters in order to save their world — and ours.
Release Dates: 24th May (USA, UK)
04 Monday Mar 2013
Tags
2013, Anna Faris, Bill Hader, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, Cody Cameron, Kris Pearn, Will Forte
Directors: Cody Cameron, Kris Pearn
Stars: Bill Hader, Anna Faris, Will Forte
Plot: Flint Lockwood now works at The Live Corp Company for his idol Chester V. But he’s forced to leave his post when he learns that his most infamous machine is still operational and is churning out menacing food-animal hybrids.
Release Dates: 27th September (USA), 25th October (UK)
21 Saturday Jul 2012
Director: Peter Ramsey
Voices: Hugh Jackman, Alec Baldwin, Isla Fisher
Plot: When the Boogieman launches an assault on Earth, several mythic beings team up to stop him.
Release Dates: 21st November (USA), 30th November (UK)
29 Friday Jun 2012
Director: Dan Scanlon
Voices: Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi
Plot: A look at the relationship between Mike and Sulley during their days at the University of Fear — when they weren’t necessarily the best of friends.
Release Dates: 21st June 2013 (USA), 12th July 2013 (UK)
02 Wednesday May 2012
Tags
2010, Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Megamind, Tom McGrath, Will Ferrell
Director: Tom McGrath
Voices: Will Ferrell, Jonah Hill, Brad Pitt
Plot: When supervillain Megamind defeats his nemesis Metro Man, he finds himself without an opponent or purpose in his life.
Comic book films are expected to follow a strict formula, which in turn makes them difficult to broaden their scope for originality. Whether it be a radioactive spider which bites an unsuspecting human or an alien with ready-made superpowers crash-landing on earth, the germ of an idea always grows from an accepted convention, which makes Megamind stand out from the crowd. This is a very ‘knowing’ film that openly mocks the idea that superheroes are all good and so-called villains are inherently evil.
Megamind (Ferrell) is a self-proclaimed alien genius, who has suffered at the cruel hand of fate. He arrived in a pod as a baby from his home planet, sent by his parents as his world is consumed by a black hole. At exactly the same time, his nemesis Metro Man (Pitt) came to Earth in the same fashion, but his custom-made spaceship collided with Megamind’s, landing him outside a rich family’s doorstep whilst Megamind ended up in a prison yard. And so the path of good and evil was set. For the following years, the two battled eachother until Megamind finally won, apparently vapourising his enemy during a very public battle. He is now in control of Metro City, but having lain waste to the people’s freedoms and literally cast the entire city under a cloud, Megamind finds himself without an opponent to keep him occupied.
Meanwhile, reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey) is kidnapped by Megamind and his friend Minion (David Cross) as part of his plan to bring down Metro Man. When Megamind releases her after his plan is accomplished, he goes to the Metro Man Museum in order to blow it up, but notices that Roxanne is there too. He disguises himself as curator Bernard (Ben Stiller) using a special device and finds himself falling for his former hostage. Roxanne’s curiosity gets the better of her and she sneaks into Megamind’s lair with help from her cameraman Hall (Hill). Megamind, inspired by a comment Roxanne made about creating a new superhero to do battle with, gets Metro Man’s DNA so that he can inject it into a human. Whilst selecting his target, he accidentally turns Hal into “Titan” – after a brief moment of panic, he manages to train his new adversary, but of course, it doesn’t all go according to plan.
The first half an hour of Megamind is a dazzling barrage of one-liners, which you’d expect to find in many Will Ferrell films. Such exchanges between Pitt’s Metro Man and Ferrell’s Megamind as: “It’s revenge and it’s best served cold!” “But it can be easily reheated, in the microwave of evil!” initially come thick and fast, giving the film a cracking start. But like, Megamind himself, the script loses its way after this promising beginning, resorting to particularly silly and predictable set-pieces which we’ve all seen many times before. Taking such an original approach to comic book storylines and films needs to be maintained throughout the entire spectacle and unfortunately the plot succumbs to the age-old formula it is trying so desperately to mock. Despite its faults, the storyline manages to entertain and there are still a few ripostes from Megamind and Minion to their bewildering situation that will no doubt tickle even the most cynical of funny bones.
Will Ferrell is well-cast as hapless supervillian Megamind. The delivery of the sharpest lines needs someone who knows how to convey comedy in this way and he is the perfect choice. His funny exchanges with Tina Fey’s Roxanne are most in part down to the script, but once again it is Fey’s wit that is required and she delivers. The animation is nothing out of the extraordinary, as Dreamworks aren’t presently a patch on Pixar when it comes to detail – but it does the job and there are some very neat sequences that would look nice and shiny on the 3D big-screen. Tom McGrath’s direction is at times thrilling during the action scenes, but there are few moments where you could say he raises the bar in any way. It’s interesting to note that Guillermo Del Toro is credited as a producer here, although you would be hard-pressed to find any of his weird and wonderful Spanish flair injected into Megamind himself.
There is much to like about Megamind, although the theme of self-parody is now rather common among animated feature films. However, this is a decent effort in poking fun at how film studios expect us to pay good money to see a conveyor belt of superheroes at the cinema, just with different names and dressed up in an alternative matching cape and Y-fronts.
Rating: 
