DO YOU HAVE KIDS? If so, take them to this movie: They won’t remember it a week later, and neither will you, but at least they’ll stop crying for 95 minutes (kids, right?). Despicable Me, featuring the voice talents of Steve Carell, is the latest kid-themed/adult-friendly animated film, in which a not-so-evil supervillain, Gru (Carell) uses his cold heart and awkward Russian accent to attempt the biggest heist of them all: the moon. Logically, he adopts three adorable orphan girls to help him with his plan.
At first, Gru’s pretty mean to his new children, but by the end of the movie he truly loves them because—surprise!—it turns out he had a heart of gold the whole time! The plot’s basic, and there’s a heavy reliance on repetitive physical humor—despite spectacular animation and good voice acting, this forgettable distraction hardly compares to some of the great computer-animated masterpieces of recent years.