By Patricia Ducey. It’s lonely at the top.
That’s the premise of Dreamworks’ latest 3-D animated toon, Megamind. In a story that mines this rich thematic vein, we watch as two protagonists – the balding blue-headed ‘Megamind’ and his nemesis, the superhero ‘Metro Man’ – come to this sad realization. Metro Man finds his superhero status a burden, whereas the bumbling Megamind is revealed to be no brilliant, lonely anti-hero like Charles Foster Kane, nor an ambitious Huey Long figure – nor a god-man brought low by flying too close to the sun. Instead, he is the pitiable product of a lousy childhood – and this ‘he’s depraved on account of he’s deprived‘ trope proves the less successful aspect of the story.
I’m reminded of those great lyrics from West Side Story:
Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke,
You gotta understand,
It’s just our bringin’ up-ke
That gets us out of hand.
Our mothers all are junkies,
Our fathers all are drunks.
Golly Moses, naturally we’re punks!
Megamind borrows liberally from other cartoon narratives, especially Superman’s. A planet in a far-off galaxy is about to self-destruct, so two sets of parents rocket their babies off into the ether – hoping they find safety on firmer ground. In a pure accident of fate, one baby lands under the Christmas tree in the home of a loving, intact family – while the other alights in a prison yard. Predictably, the loved child grows up to be a superhero, albeit a bit of a conceited prig, and the prison baby grows up to be Megamind. But Megamind chooses the dark side, in true psycho-babble fashion, only after Metro Man and the other kids at school bully and tease him. If they think I’m bad, I might as well be bad, he figures. Thus their lifelong rivalry begins, and Megamind is satisfied with conjuring up devilish plans and having the occasional plot hit its mark. He can’t even imagine that one day he might actually defeat Metro Man – yet it happens, much to his surprise.
Megamind revels in his triumph for a time – The king is dead, long live the king! He raids the Federal Reserve, steals the Mona Lisa, and runs Metro City into the ground. Something is missing, though – so in disguise, he woos newswoman Roxanne Ritchi (like Cyrano wooing Roxanne). Will Megamind discover his inner good guy? Will Roxanne learn that a man’s heart is more important that his looks?
I think you know the answer.
All well and good. The weak link in the story, though, turns on the fate of Metro Man. Megamind thoroughly defeats him. Yet in Act 3 our supposedly dead hero reappears; apparently he faked his own death so he could drop out, grow a beard, and read self-help books. He abandons Metro City – just when the people need him – to search for self-fulfillment. And at last he finds his true calling: he’ll become a rock star! But his singing and guitar plucking are rather wanting. Who cares? He feels fulfilled! This is where the story (and his character arc) clunk to a stop, at least for an adult. He never wises up and returns to his responsibilities, even as Roxanne urges him to – forgetting the one true superhero credo: “With great power there must come great responsibility.”
The animation and 3-D effects in Megamind, though, are stunning, with incredible range and variety. On the micro side, a baby chewing on his finger is irresistibly sweet, while the billowing satin of Megamind’s cape adds to his creepy allure. On the macro level, director Tim McGrath’s depth of field recalls the artistry of a Greg Tolland or William Wyler, with action bursting out of the screen on all three axes. The evil Titan lashes the damsel Roxanne to the highest skyscraper in Metro City, and Metro Man careens down the concrete canyons of Wall Street; the film is truly a 90-minute roller coaster ride. In addition, McGrath inserts jokes for the grownups: a Marlon Brando/Jor-El parody as Megamind’s father, a political poster a la the famous Obama ‘Hope’ poster, etc. Continue reading LFM Review: Megamind
