The animated film Megamind suffers from a serious identity crisis. Ironically, much like its title character, it cannot decide if its standing on the side good or bad. It is a highly uneven film that moves back and forth from banal scenes to jewels of originality. I kept finding myself hoping that the witty parts will last but alas, the plot quickly dropped back to the mediocre and recycled materials of past animated movies. The problem this created is that the film is not satisfying enough for adults, and not entertaining enough for children. I went with my kids, who usually automatically give animated films rating of 4-5 stars (out of 5 – I survey them after the film). This one received 3-4 stars which is very atypical. In the audience, I overheard a girl sitting behind us, asking her parents about half way through the film, when will it be over...
In terms of theme, the film is packed with so many noble ideas that it ends up doing both those topics as well as the film disservice. The idea that a person may turn evil because of rejection by society is suffice to explore as a theme all on its own, but the plot does not stop there and packs on top of this the chewy idea of “don’t judge a book by its cover”, of the freedom a person has at any moment to chose and change, of the temptation in power, of the tiredness from being at the spotlight, and of course – a lace of love...
I appreciate how the characters were not as black and white as characters usually tend to be in animated and comics based movies, but rather have various shades. Yet this is a hard one to pull in an animated flick meant for children. The voice cast was mostly very good, noting especially Will Ferrell, Tina Fey and Brad Pitt.
All in all, this is a very well-intended film and I applaud the writers and filmmakers for tackling such topics but due to lack of focus, the delivery falls short of the intention.