Despicable Me
Dir: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud
Sincere Question: During this, Pixar’s Golden Age of Animation, is it somehow ungrateful to wish for an occasional decent deviation from Masterpiece after Masterpiece, in the way that Bugs Bunny and Co. served as a hellzapoppin’ corrective to Disney’s dignified heft? (Despite the repeated efforts of Dreamworks, the mere presence of pop culture references and ’70s songs on the soundtrack just doesn’t scratch the itch, somehow.) Call me Looney, but the more resonant and spectacular Pixar’s output becomes, the greater the risk of reducing the surface pleasures of watching drawings (or renderings or whatever) do things that real people can’t.
Despicable Me would likely be enjoyable on any terms, but in the wake of the heart-wrenching Toy Story 3, its emphasis on Rube Goldbergian pratfalls and spittakes seems almost heroic. Much like last year’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, it recognizes the virtues of letting a cartoon be, well, cartoony, no matter how newfangled the technology.