Despicable Me (2010)

Released in the summer of 2010, Despicable Me arrived at an interesting moment for animated family films. Pixar had spent the better part of a decade raising the bar for what the genre could achieve, and a clutch of rival studios were busy working out how to compete. Illumination Entertainment, a relatively new production company backed by Universal Pictures, chose a different approach: rather than chasing emotional ambition, they built their debut feature around a simple comic conceit, a supervillain with a moon-sized ego and an unexpectedly soft centre. The film runs a lean 95 minutes, and it wears its broad, crowd-pleasing intentions on its sleeve from the very first frame. Its tagline, "Superbad. Superdad.", tells you more or less everything you need to know going in.

The film was co-directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, marking Coffin's feature directorial debut (he had worked extensively in animation prior, including on shorts and television). Coffin would go on to direct further entries in the franchise, including Despicable Me 2 and Minions, suggesting the studio placed considerable faith in his instincts for this particular world. The premise follows Gru, a self-styled criminal mastermind who hatches an audacious plan to steal the Moon, only for his scheme to be complicated by three young orphaned girls he adopts as unwitting pawns. It is a setup borrowed from the classic "villain gets humanised" playbook, dressed up in garish production design and a healthy dose of slapstick. There is no source novel or comic behind it; this was an original screenplay, written specifically to launch what Universal clearly hoped would become a durable franchise property.

Leading the voice cast is Steve Carell as Gru, performing in a broad, vaguely Eastern European accent that keeps the character at an affectionate distance from any real menace. Carell was, by 2010, firmly established as one of Hollywood's more reliable comic performers, equally at home in ensemble comedies like Little Miss Sunshine and broader fare like Dinner for Schmucks, released the same year as this film. Jason Segel voices the rival villain Vector, while Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, and Elsie Fisher bring the three orphaned girls, Margo, Edith, and Agnes, to life. The voice performances are polished but unremarkable for the most part, though the Minions, those small yellow creatures who serve as Gru's henchmen, emerged as the film's most talked-about creation and quickly became a cultural shorthand for the Illumination brand. Whether that was entirely a good thing for the films themselves is, of course, another question entirely, and one worth bearing in mind for any of the later entries, including other animated films of the era that made similarly calculating bets on ancillary merchandising appeal.

Despicable Me (2010) is a perfectly serviceable animated comedy. Bright, brisk, and built around a simple but effective premise: a supervillain adopts three little girls as part of an evil scheme, only to have his heart melted by their innocence. It’s cute, harmless, and clearly engineered for broad family appeal. The animation is clean and colourful, the gags are mostly inoffensive, and the Minions (those gibberish-speaking, yellow sidekicks) quickly became marketing gold, even if their antics lean more on noise than wit. But beyond its surface charm, the film feels formulaic and emotionally lightweight. Gru’s transformation from cold-hearted baddie to loving dad happens with little resistance or depth, making his arc feel rushed rather than earned. The villain rivalry with Vector (a one-note antagonist) adds some energy, but it’s mostly an excuse for slapstick set pieces that rarely rise above “mildly amusing.” And while Steve Carell gives Gru a playful Eastern European lilt, his performance can’t quite elevate the thin script. What’s most telling is how forgettable the whole thing is. Unlike Pixar’s best as a comparison (films that balance humour with genuine heart) Despicable Me plays like a feature-length cartoon stretched just long enough to justify a toy line. It’s not bad, but it’s not memorable either. An average kids’ film that does the job without standing out. Watch it once with your children, laugh politely at the fart jokes, and move on. It launched a franchise, sure, but as a standalone movie, it’s all Minions and no soul.

That assessment feels about right to me. There is something mildly dispiriting about watching a film that clearly had the resources and the talent to aim higher, but seemed content to settle for "good enough." The Minions are fun for about ten minutes before you notice the jokes are on a loop, and Gru's change of heart arrives so swiftly you wonder if a reel went missing somewhere. For a first-time watch with the kids on a rainy Saturday afternoon it does the job, and I would not begrudge anyone an hour and a half of harmless colour and noise. But if you find yourself reaching for the remote afterwards with no particular memory of what you just watched, do not be surprised. Some films coast on charm alone, and this is one of them.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 2010  | Watched: 2026-04-21

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Trailer

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Pierre Coffin: Despicable Me 2 (2013) · Despicable Me 3 (2017) · Minions (2015)
More with Steve Carell: Beautiful Boy (2018) · Little Miss Sunshine (2006) · Dinner for Schmucks (2010) · Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022)
More from the 2010s: Wonder (2017) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)