Animation movie fans have a treat in store for them this July. Despicable Me, a computer-animated 3-D film from Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment, is slated for a July 9, 2010, release in the United States.Rated PG for rude humor and mild action, Despicable Me is directed by Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin. Despicable Me stars Steve Carell, Miranda Cosgrove, Russell Brand, Jason Segel and Julie Andrews. The cast also includes Kristen Wiig and Danny Mcbride.
Photo: Despicable Me movie poster
The story is set in a suburban neighborhood which has a whole lot of houses with gardens abloom with rose bushes and surrounded by white picket fences. In the midst of this pretty area is a black house with a dead lawn.
The residents don’t know it, but the black house shelters beneath it a huge secret hideout. The vast network of underground domelike rooms is where the evil-minded Gru (Steve Carell) is raising a small battalion of minions to pull off the biggest heist the world has ever seen.
Armed with an arsenal of shrink rays, freeze rays, and battle-ready vehicles for land and air, Gru has his eye on the moon, yes, the moon! Keen to outsmart his arch enemy Vector (Jason Segel, who’s the No. 1 super villain), wicked Gru hopes to become the biggest villain the world has ever seen after pulling off his robbery.
But in his house and outside, Gru continues to live a normal life. He goes to the stores and coffee shop; and sometimes – just sometimes – uses his freeze-ray to shorten the line a bit.
The stage is set for him to pull off the biggest heist of all when he runs into his biggest challenge – three orphaned children who show up at his doorstep looking for a father. He fails in all his attempts to send the three kids – Margo, Edith and Agnes – packing or to discipline them, but ultimately lets them stay with him. Will Superbad Gru turn Superdad Gru? Wait till July 9, 2010, to watch Despicable Me and find out.
Steve Carell, who has voiced Gru, is known for his roles in the TV series The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (1999 to 2004) and The Office from 2005 onward. He has also starred in Anchorman, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine, Evan Almighty, Dan in Real Life, Get Smart, and Date Night; and provided voiceovers in animated films Over the Hedge and Horton Hears a Who!
Jason Segel (the voice of Vector, Gru’s nemesis) is known for his work in TV (Freaks, Geeks, Undeclared), and movies such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up, and I Love You, Man. Segel also played Marshall Erikson in CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.