Plot: What’s it about?
Will Ferrell cracks me up. He always has. And, up until I’d seen “Megamind” I thought that it was just his physical mannerisms that were the key to his humor. As it turns out, I was mistaken. They guy has one of the greatest voices in the history of mankind. Ok, maybe that’s pushing it a bit. Still, he has a way of conveying things with the tone and inflection and the result (as least in this film) was hilarious. Ferrell, as many know, got his start on SNL and then quickly graduated to feature-length films. If memory serves, and that’s a bit iffy, I believe that this is Ferrell’s first voiceover for an animated movie. Now along with Pixar, I’d put Dreamworks right up there with some of the better animated films with “How to Train Your Dragon”, “Monsters vs. Aliens” and the “Shrek” series to their credit. Will a blue-headed alien fly with audiences. Read on and let’s find out.
If you’ve ever seen “Superman” or know anything about the general premise, you’ll be right at home here. “Megamind” makes no bones about borrowing from said storyline, and maybe that’s part of the charm. We meet Megamind (voiced by Will Ferrell) and Metro Man (voiced by Brad Pitt) as their home planets are being destroyed. They’re sent off in pods and land safely on Earth. Metro Man finds his way to a well-to-due family while Megamind ends up in prison. Throughout their childhood it’s clear that Metro Man is the one with all the allure and finally Megamind decides that playing good isn’t his strength. And, thus, “Megamind” is born. The two continue their rivalry into their adult years with Megamind launching a scheme and Metro Man foiling it faster than he can blink. But on one occasion, Megamind actually ends up killing his foe thus opening the door for Megamind to take over Metro City (or as Megamind referrs to it: “Metrocity”). So life is good, right? Wrong. Meagmind quickly learns that having everything isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and with no Metro Man to duel with, life has lost its pizazz. Trying to re-capture the “good ‘ol days”, Megamind invents a new superhero called Titan (voiced by Jonah Hill), but when he turns to the dark side, all may be lost. Or will it? With no good guys around is Metro City doomed or will a hero rise and save the day?
“Megamind” is yet another example of an animated movie being enjoyable for both children and adults. I give a lot of the credit to Will Ferrell, though the script played a bit part in it as well. Quite simply, there are things you can do in an animated movie that you can’t do in a live action film and that’s what makes these movies so enjoyable. Ferrell leads the way but Brad Pitt, Tina Fey, J.K. Simmons and Jonah Hill all lend their talents and help make the movie entertaining for all. I feel quite certain that there’ll be more of “Megamind” in the future years as the movie was very well-received and the box office ($150 million) was fairly impressive. Yes, the Pixar movies are great but you’d be denying yourself a great movie if you didn’t give this disc a spin.
Video: How does it look?
This is one of those “you don’t even have to ask” movies in Blu-ray as we know that essentially any computer-animated movie will look outstanding. And guess what? It does. The 2.40:1 AVC HD transfer is simply perfect with no errors at all. Detail is so amazing that you can read the tiniest of text, see the definition in pretty much everything and feel like you can reach right out and touch the characters on the screen. This transfer was taken directly from the digital source, so there’s nothing to hinder the image in the least. As I usually say with these types of movies, I could go on and on but you know what you’re getting when you put this Blu-ray in and it delivers – on all levels.
Audio: How does it sound?
The number of studios that offer support for Dolby’s uncompressed soundtracks keeps dwindling, but Dreamworks (via Paramount) is one of them. The Dolby TrueHD soundtrack is nothing short of spectacular and in a movie filled with super heroes and super villains, well let’s just say you can expect some things to rumble and break. They do. Dialogue is crystal clear and you can hear every inflection in Ferrell’s voice throughout. Surrounds are used often (especially during the closing act) and the LFE do more than their fare share as well. This is just short of perfection and will certainly give your home theater a workout.
Supplements: What are the extras?
“Megamind” comes to Blu-ray in a combo pack with the DVD being the second disc (and lacking on some features that the Blu-ray has as “exclusives” on). Though the menus might make it look like there’s a lot of supplements, there’s very little substance to some of these. Still, we start off with a commentary track on the film which is pretty in-depth as well as the trivia track that can accompany it. There’s a selection of games (spot the differences, how to draw Megamind and so forth) as well as a deleted scene. There’s also a new 15 minute feature called “The Button of Doom” which is essentially an extension of the film itself. We get to “Meet the Cast” in a been there, done that featurette and take a trip inside Megamind’s lair. All things considered, it’s a good sampling of supplements but nothing too mind-blowing.
