Turning a traditional Superman-esque scenario on its enormous noggin, DreamWorks’ animated Megamind proves a revisionist superhero saga rooted in questions of free will. In Metro City, narcissistic do-gooder Metro Man (Brad Pitt) does constant battle with his insecure nemesis Megamind (Will Ferrell), a giant blue-headed villain whose nefarious motivations – as spied in an intro that recaps the duo’s childhood rivalry – are born as much from jealousy and a desire to be loved as from pure evilness. However, when one of his plots actually kills Metro Man and he becomes supreme ruler of the metropolis, Megamind finds himself without purpose, and bored with wreaking havoc alongside alien-fish sidekick Minion (David Cross), he soon endeavors to woo Lois Lane stand-in Roxanne Ritchie (Tina Fey) and turn a dork (Jonah Hill) into a new heroic adversary. Director Tom McGrath’s film features bright, bouncy animation and fluid action that, while a bit too reminiscent of The Incredibles (and, in terms of Megamind himself, Monsters vs. Aliens’ Gallaxhar), nonetheless ably matches the script’s rat-a-tat-tat pacing and stream of witty one-liners, many of which tweak the genre’s conventions and hallowed classics (the best: a Marlon Brando gag). Given how assured it often feels, Megamind should be more consistently laugh-out-loud funny rather than just mildly amusing, but its vocal cast – especially Ferrell as the crazed but sensitive Megamind – is uniformly strong. Moreover, though its more subversive impulses are rarely indulged to their fullest, its story’s third-act inversions still provide a pointed rebuke to superhero narratives’ set-in-stone dynamics.
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