Fridae

In films as in life, familiarity breeds contempt. Any trope if seen too often and too frequently devolves into self-parody and farce, and very often comedy is the way to resuscitate a genre that has been done to death.

Behold for example, the trope of the supervillain, the megalomaniac who always comes up with grandiose and impractical schemes one after another for no apparent reason other than to show the world that he's made for greatness, seen in countless superhero and spy movies. Doing so with an impregnable fortress, seemingly unlimited numbers of disposable goons, and a source of great power that serves as the device by which he will prove his greatness ONCE AND FOR ALL!

*Clap of thunder*

Not so long ago, the Austin Powers franchise finally exploited the comic potential of such a character by turning him into a figure who may be an evil genius but is beset by familiar problems common to all, as seen when Dr Evil's son Scott Evil goes on a talk show to discuss how his father is evil and wants to take over the world. Despicable Me stretches this one gag to the length of a full movie, adding one new riff by setting it in a world where supervillainy is a vocation. It revolves around the supervillain Gru (Steve Carell), who seems born for the vocation with his Blofeldesque bald head, sinister features, inventive genius, vaguely Eastern European accent, loyal henchman Dr Nefario (Russell Brand), army of multi-purpose yellow minions, and his general love of nastiness and mischief. His famous capers include stealing the Times Square jumbotron, but recently, another more brilliant supervillain named Vector (Jason Segel) has emerged from nowhere to steal his thunder by stealing the pyramid of Giza. Vector is a smug, bespectacled, nasty nerd whose corny fashion sense and silly weapons combine to form a deadly cocktail of dorkiness and blind ambition each heightening the other. Trying to one up his rival, Gru plans his greatest crime: to steal the moon. However, in the process, Gru meets three adorable orphans: precocious Margo, mischievous Edith and innocent Agnes, who live in an orphanage run by Miss Hattie (Kristen Wiig). Slowly, their innocence and kindness show Gru that there is more to life than vain ambition.

With Despicable Me, another studio, Illumination Entertainment, proves it can go toe to toe with Pixar's top product. Blow for blow, Despicable Me is the best film of its kind since The Incredibles. If you can imagine an Austin Powers movie for children, with none of the innuendo and still funnier than Goldmember, this would be it. The writing is crisp, sharp and elegant with great jokes aplenty, and the character designs, often using rounded contours and curved lines, are sleek and endearing at the same time. It also brilliantly renders a universe unlike most seen in comic book movies: in this world, supervillainy is a cottage industry, where one may apply to the bank for loans to embark on one's grandiose schemes. But the lack of any visible superheroes provide a running commentary on the implausible nature of most supervillain schemes in the movies; and feeds into the idea that supervillainy is such a farcical vocation as to render it inconsequential and unworthy of the raising of a plausible counter-vocation of superheroism. Whereas the orphans' would-be guardian, Miss Hattie, turns out to in some ways be a more frightening antagonist as a practical example of everyday villainy, possessing a venality and false piety that would not be out of place in Moliere or Dickens. She runs the orphanage as her cash cow to sell her cookies, and orphans that fail to sell enough of her cookies are put in the "Box of Shame" to be humiliated and punished. Yet she is at the same time vain and gullible, and her folly only adds to both her humanity and her depth as a character. Gru himself is not to far off from being the hero of a Neil Simon farce in being constantly addled by a hard-bitten, tough as nails, jaded mother. That such colorful characterization does not come at the expense of well-filmed, unbelievably exciting action sequences should provide a lesson to the Michael Bays of the world.

And best of all, it's great to see a kid's film with a main character that starts off antiheroic and ends up antiheroic in spite of the "heroic" feats he accomplishes. Gru may have had a change of heart, but the movie never gives the sense that his core of vain ambition rooted in a difficult childhood will ever go away. This may be the first kids' movie about an antihero that kids can look up to. Adults have had their antiheroes in action movies and thrillers for too long, and everyone knows antiheroes have more fun anyway. It's about time their kids got one too.