“Superbad. Superdad.”—Film tagline
Despicable Me is a 2010 animated adventure crime-comedy heist film produced by Illumination Entertainment (the company’s first feature film) for Universal Studios. It was directed by Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin and produced by Chris Meledandri, Janet Healy and John Cohen, from a screenplay by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio and a story by Sergio Pablos, and features music by Heitor Pereira with original songs written and performed by Pharrell Williams.
The film was so successful that it gained three sequels (Despicable Me 2 in 2013, Despicable Me 3 in 2017, and Despicable Me 4 in 2024) and the spin-off Minions series currently consisting of the 2015 prequel film Minions and its 2022 sequel Minions: The Rise of Gru, with a third follow-up in development as of this writing. It stars Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews, Miranda Cosgrove, Will Arnett, and Kristen Wiig, with Dana Gaier, Elsie Fisher, Pierre Coffin, and Chris Renaud in supporting roles.
The film follows Gru, a longtime supervillain who adopts three orphaned girls as to use as pawns in his villainous scheme to shrink and steal the moon in order to outdo Vector, a rival supervillain who stole the Great Pyramid of Giza. However, while initially annoyed with the girls, Gru reluctantly develops an emotional attachment to them and soon becomes their adoptive father.
Plot[]
Supervillain Felonious Gru has his pride injured when another supervillain successfully manages to steal the entire Great Pyramid of Giza. With the assistance of his colleague Dr. Nefario and his army of Minions, Gru devises a plan to outdo his unknown rival by shrinking and stealing the moon itself of all things, an idea based on his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut, which was always scorned and ridiculed by his disparaging mother Marlena. Such an endeavor, however, will be incredibly expensive as noted by Nefario. So Gru seeks a loan from the Bank of Evil, which the bank president, Mr. Perkins, will grant as long as the former procures the shrink ray required to shrink the moon. While at the bank, Gru meets Vector, an aspiring supervillain who was responsible for the Pyramid heist and, therefore, the former takes an immediate disliking to. Later on, Gru and a couple of his Minions steal the newly-tested shrink ray from a secret research base in Asia, only for Vector to ambush them and steal it for himself, as payback for Gru freezing his head earlier at the bank.
The next day, Gru attempts to break into Vector’s fortress and get the shrink ray back, only to be defeated by numerous booby traps. After several failed attempts, he notices three orphan girls, Margo, Edith and Agnes, being allowed to enter the base to sell Vector cookies. Seeing this as an opportunity, Gru, under the guise of a dentist, fakes his credentials as such (made up by the Minions at random) and adopts the girls from the local orphanage, planning on using them to infiltrate Vector’s base and steal the shrink ray back. However, Gru finds the girls to be a major nuisance and they themselves are unsure if they’ll be happy with Gru, especially since their time with Miss Hattie, the orphanage’s cruel owner, was considerably worse. After attending one of the girls’ ballet classes, Gru and the girls arrive at Vector’s base. While they’re there, Gru and a couple of the Minions successfully manage to steal the shrink ray right out from under Vector’s nose. As they head home, the girls suggest a quick stop to Super Silly Fun Land, a vibrant theme park, which Gru agrees to as he intends on abandoning them there. However, to his dismay, a roller coaster attendant tells him the girls cannot ride without an adult. Though initially annoyed, Gru eventually starts to warm up to the girls, especially after they compliment him on blowing up a rigged carnival game to get Agnes a stuffed unicorn.
Later that day, Gru contacts Mr. Perkins via a video call and shows him that he has the shrink ray in his possession. However, as he explains his plan to Perkins, Margo, Edith and Agnes disrupt the meeting, prompting Perkins to reject Gru and no longer fund his operations as he has officially lost all confidence the latter. As Gru explains the bad news to Dr. Nefario and the Minions, the girls kindly offer the contents of their piggy back to fund Gru’s plan. Inspired, the Minions pool their resources to fund the moon heist as well. Touched by their generosity, Gru sacrifices parts of his lair to construct a rocket by selling everything possible to support the plan. Meanwhile, Mr. Perkins informs Vector (who is revealed to be his son) of Gru’s possession of the shrink ray, prompting Vector to take action. In the meantime, Nefario calculates the day when the moon is closest to Earth, which unfortunately happens to be the day of the girls’ upcoming ballet recital. Gru is conflicted by this much to the disapproval of Nefario, who arranges for the girls to returned to the orphanage as he believes they are too much of a distraction to the former.
The next day, Gru proceeds with his plan to steal the moon, successfully shrinking it to fit in his hand (with a brief prior attempt by Vector to latch onto the rocket, only to receive an electrical shock). Hoping to make it to the recital on time, he rushes back to Earth but finds that he’s too late. To make matters worse, he finds a note from Vector, which says that he’s kidnapped the girls and will exchange the moon for them. Arriving at Vector’s lair, Gru readily makes the trade, but Vector refuses to give back the girls and tries to kill Gru with heat-seeking missiles. Enraged, Gru evades them and defeats Vector’s pet shark, forcing the latter to activate his escape aircraft and fly off, though not before Gru scales the pyramid nearby and grabs onto the ship. Meanwhile, Nefario and the Minions discover that the shrink ray’s effects are temporary; the bigger an object’s mass, the faster it will revert to normal. They fly off in Gru’s airship (which was shrunk earlier by Vector but has now regained its original size) to warn him of the moon’s impending expansion, arriving just in time to save Gru as he loses his grip on Vector’s aircraft before he falls to his death. As the shrink’s ray effect begins to wear off on the moon, Gru, Dr. Nefario and the Minions pull off a daring mid-air rescue of the girls just as the moon launches itself back into its proper orbit, destroying Vector’s aircraft and leaving him stranded on its surface.
Sometime afterward, Gru reclaims custody of the girls and happily reads them a bedtime story framed around his own experience entitled “One Big Unicorn.” Later on, the girls perform their own ballet recital for Gru, Marlena, Dr. Nefario and the Minions to make up for the one Gru missed, which another Minion turns into a dance party. The film concludes as Gru brings a piece of the dance stage up with Margo, Edith and Agnes and they all look at the moon.
Songs[]
- “Despicable Me”
- “The Unicorn Song”
- “Fun, Fun, Fun”
- “Prettiest Girls”
- “Rocket’s Theme”
Cast[]
- Steve Carell as Felonius Gru, a longtime supervillain who plots to steal the moon and the girls’ adoptive father.
- Jason Segel as Victor “Vector” Perkins, Gru’s archrival and Mr. Perkins’ song who was responsible for stealing the Great Pyramid of Giza and often undermines Gru with more advanced technology.
- Russell Brand as Dr. Nefario, an elderly, hearing-impaired yet friendly scientist who serves as Gru’s gadget man.
- Miranda Cosgrove as Margo, the oldest of Gru’s adoptive daughters who is known for her wit.
- Dana Gaier as Edith, the middle sister of Gru’s adoptive daughters who is known for her mischievous attitude.
- Elsie Fisher as Agnes, the youngest of Gru’s adoptive daughters who has an obsession with unicorns.
- Julie Andrews as Marlena Gru, Gru’s hard-to-please mother who never believes in her son or his dreams and aspirations.
- Will Arnett as Mr. Perkins, the president of the Bank of Evil and Vector’s father.
- Kristen Wiig as Miss Hattie, the dominating and uncaring owner of the local orphanage.
- Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud, and Jemaine Clement as some of the Minions (specifically Tim, Bob, Mark, Phil, Stuart, Dave and Jerry respectively), Gru’s adorable and humorous henchmen.
Additional voices[]
- Jack McBrayer as the following characters:
The greedy carnival barker who mans the rigged “Space Killer” game at Super Silly Fun Land.
Justin’s tourist father seen at the very beginning of the film.
- Danny McBride as Fred McDade, Gru’s average neighbor who has difficulty understanding him.
- Mindy Kaling as Justin’s tourtist mother seen at the very beginning of the film.
- Rob Huebel as the anchorman
External links[]
Despicable Me on YouTube