DVD Reviews

Despicable Me

When you think of computer animated films that please both kids and adults alike you might immediately think of Disney/Pixar but that is soon to change. Universal Pictures have unleashed a crowd pleaser with Despicable Me and I’m already a fan.

Vying for the title of “World’s Greatest Villain,” Gru, along with his hilarious crew of mischievous minions, plots to pull off the craziest crime of the century: steal the moon! But when Gru enlists the help of three little girls, they see something in him nobody else has ever seen: the perfect dad.

Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround. The track has a good amount of range and activity. The surrounds are used quite extensively throughout but at times I found that they weren’t used as effectively as they could have been. Dialogue is always clean and clear and never overpowered by the music of sound effects. Low end gets a light workout but explosions are… well… explosive.

The video is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and while it’s a little soft, I was quite surprised by how good it looked. Colours are vibrant with little to no bleed and blacks are quite inky. There is artifacting/jaggies present but never are they distracting. I didn’t notice any grain or haloes which was nice. Detail is a bit less than expected due to the softness in the picture but animated films on DVD never seem to look as good as they should. All in all, this is a pretty solid picture.

This DVD has a pretty decent selection of supplemental materials. The disc opens with trailers for Hop, Nanny McPhee Returns, The Little Engine That Could, an ad about different home video formats and an ad for the 25^th anniversary edition Blu-ray release of the Back to the Future trilogy. These are not accessible from the disc’s menus but what is, is probably more entertaining anyways.  “The World of Despicable Me” is a standard promo piece containing interview footage spliced in with film footage. It talks about the story, the characters, locations, etc. Not something you want to watch before seeing the film as it gives a lot away but at the same time, it doesn’t give you too much in the way of new information if you’ve already seen the film. It runs about 15 minutes and in my honest opinion, can probably just be skipped.

 “Despicable Beats” is a nice look at the music used in the film but it is a little short and concentrates a bit too much on the work that Pharrell did and less on the work of Heitor Pereira which is disappointing. Next up is “Gru’s Rocket Builder.” It is obviously geared towards the kids. The extra is a small little game where you match up monuments with the places they are from in order to build a rocket and save the day. This would actually be a little hard for the little ones. The only hints you get are the location (city, country), a partial image and a “hint” which for the Eiffel Tower was “It sends out radio waves.” From that you need to pick one of the four tiny images at the bottom of the screen. These images don’t allow you to make them larger nor do they say what they are.  It really would just be a guess for most kids. You have to match up 9 different landmarks to win. “A Global Effort” is an interesting and informative piece that talks about an aspect of the film I didn’t know about previously. It seems that the film was produced all over the world. The main animation work happened in France and they had to connect with the actors in multiple different cities in the US. Unfortunately, this extra, much like the others, is much too short to give any truly meaningful information.

The second to last extra is under the title “Despicable Me Game Previews” and gives you the option to view either the Despicable Me: The Game trailer OR the Despicable Me: Minion Mania App trailer. Both games look like they are simple puzzle games. The last and probably most important extra is the full length commentary with Director’s Chris Renaud & Pierre Coffin (featuring the Minions). It can be selected from either the Setup menu or the Bonus menu. The commentary is always active with Renaud dominating the track. The two go into all aspects of the performances, story, music and some of the different changes that ended up being made during production. To liven up the commentary the minions make seemingly random visits to the commentary. I believe both Renaud and Coffin (mostly Coffin) actually did some the voices of the minions in the film so it makes sense that they could show up on the commentary and takes the commentary from standard to extraordinary.

Despicable Me manages to blend the fun colourful antics of a computer animated film geared towards kids with a story that can touch the heart of every adult.  Gru’s little henchmen are absolutely adorable. And while the story is extremely predictable, it is easy to overlook because of all of the cuteness being spread around.  There are some jokes geared specifically to the kids and others that are geared more towards adults (they’d go well over the heads of the young’uns). Though I’d recommend going for the Blu-ray release first of all, for all those that do not have that option, this DVD is sure to please. Combine a good DVD from the newest player in great animated features and this release of Despicable Me is sure to please.  Highly recommended.

Review By Robert Harding