Academic

So, our family has been anxiously awaiting the premiere of Megamind.  We're not crazy enough to go see the Thursday midnight show, but we went to a fairly early Saturday showing.  Megamind did not disappoint!  Megamind is an animated feature (of course in 3-D) in the tradition of Shrek:  a little edgy, really funny and great music.

In fact, Megamind has a lot in common with Shrek.  Our (anti)hero is Megamind, a would-be Superman whose jettisoned orb is knocked out of orbit by another space immigrant to Earth's survival orb.  Megamind was on track to land in the lap of luxury, but instead he landed at the penitentiary, where apparently some strange red tape allowed him to be reared there.  Metro Man, the other baby fleeing planetary destruction, instead got the American Dream and became the superhero.  Megamind, after being labeled the bad boy at school, decides to become the best bad guy ever.  (Perhaps we should have a double feature of Megamind with Waiting for Superman.)  But, it's clear from the beginning that our bad guy has a heart of gold, doesn't really want to hurt anyone and really just needs a friend.  He's like an onion.

And our heroine, Roxanne, seems to have been cast by fate into the role of the superhero's girlfriend, though this turns out to be a sham, much like Fiona's engagement to Lord Farquaad.  And, of course, her name isn't Roxanne for nothing.  To win her favor, Megamind poses as Bernard, a cute, but normal, nerdy museum curator.  So, you can imagine how that ends up when she finds out he is Megamind, not only a dastardly supervillain, but also a skinny guy with an overly large blue head.

For undetailed reasons, Metro Man has superpowers on Earth, like our familiar Superman.  However, Megamind (possibly from a different planet, the planet of the large blue heads) does not.  Instead, he has super intelligence.  This is an interesting juxtaposition that is not capitalized on in the movie.  In fact, it is barely mentioned.  In The Incredibles, the would-be hero with no superpowers, just technology, was seen as a cheater.  Here, Megamind's superpower deficiency is barely a hurdle for him.  In fact, though he quickly figures out how to give superpowers to anyone, he never pauses to think to give them to himself.

The ultimate showdown of good v. evil is worth the hour or so to get there, and is fairly novel.  You can guess which side wins, but you may not be able to guess before seeing it how the teams line up.  That's the fun part of the movie.  In the end, Megamind, like Shrek, learns to live with positive affirmations and applause.