Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Megamind (2010) - Ferrell leads McGrath's hilarious animation superbly

8/13/2016

Megamind (2010) - Ferrell leads McGrath's hilarious animation superbly

♥♥♥♥

2 Film Excess nominations:

Best Lead Actor: Will Ferrell, also for Everything Must Go (lost to Stephen Dorff for Somewhere)
Best Animation (lost to Toy Story 3)

+ Best Family Movie of the Year

An appropriately silly-looking poster for Tom McGrath's Megamind

Megamind is a super-villain who has fought for the power over Metro(-)City his whole life. When he suddenly attains it, he learns that it is futile to be the super-villain of a city that has no superhero ...

Despite Megamind being an animated feature, Will Ferrell (The Producers (2005)) steals the show completely with a superbly intonated, super-humorous voice performance as the title character. Of course it doesn't hurt that he is backed up by Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, David Cross, Brad Pitt and a script that's rich on inventive fun. - The result is that Megamind is really funny! And animation-wise, it is as wildly attractive as intended, even if some of the action is obviously there simply to satisfy the need for 3D-type action.
The movie fires away at a high pace, successfully entertaining children as primarily an adventure and adults as primarily a comedy. Unfortunately for the film, it is an example of one of those cases where two major Hollywood films are released very near each other with almost suspiciously similar storylines: In this case Despicable Me, - also a film about a super-villain with an identity crisis development and helper minions simply called minions (Megamind's fishbowl helper is also called Minion), - which came out some months prior to Megamind and got to be the much more successful commercial one of the two, although they are of similar tone and fun level.
Megamind is written by Alan Schoolcraft and Brent Simons (Penguins of Madagascar (2014), story, both) and directed by Washingtonian filmmaker Tom McGrath (Madagascar (2005)).

Related posts:

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Watch the final official trailer for the film here

Cost: 130 mil. $
Box office: 321.8 mil. $
= Even-steven
[Megamind premiered October 28 (Russia) and runs 96 minutes. Robert Downey Jr. was initially intended to voice the title character, but that luckily fell through. The film opened #1 to a 46 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed atop for another week before dethroning to #2 and then #3 before falling out of the top 5 in its 5th week. It grossed 148.4 mil. $ (46.1 % of the total gross) domestically. Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Russia with 22 mil. $ (6.8 %) and the UK with 16 mil. $ (5 %). The film did not receive a release in China, and its Japanese release was canceled due to the Fukuyama-centered earthquake and tsunami, which contributed to its lackluster result. It sold in excess of 3 mil. DVDs and Blu-rays in North America, adding 43 mil. $ to its result, making it a financial success with this taken into account. Megamind is fresh at 73 % with a 6.7 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Megamind?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (17-24)

8/13/2016

Megamind (2010) - Ferrell leads McGrath's hilarious animation superbly

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Eagerly anticipating this week ... (16-24)

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