Quick Review: Despicable Me

I guess I can state this as a fact: usually, the first trailer for a movie will be a small tease, often showing very little of the film itself. Something like this one, for example. Then, as the film's release date nears, its trailers get more detailed -- and in some cases, too detailed, giving away key plot points unnecessarily. In the case of the computer-animated (and 3-D, although I've pretty much decided that 3-D isn't worth the extra money) "Despicable Me," the first teaser only showed a bit of the film's opening scene, capped off by a silhouette of the supervillain Gru (voice of Steve Carell). Later trailers introduced the little yellow minions that we're all now familiar with, and then the three little orphan girls, and by that point I wasn't quite sure how all of this was supposed to fit together. Fortunately, it fits together very well. Gru, with the help of his minions and his assistant, Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand), plots to steal the moon (by shrinking it) in order to regain his status as the number one supervillain from Vector (Jason Segel), but Vector has stolen the shrink ray Gru needs. Enter the three orphan girls, selling cookies door-to-door; Gru adopts them just to get into Vector's lair but then finds himself becoming attached to them. So there's the requisite warm-and-fuzzies, and a good number of laughs to boot. (I loved the sight gag showing what the Bank of Evil, where Gru visits to try and obtain funding for his moon-stealing plot, used to be.) It's not quite "Toy Story 3," but it's close. My grade: A-minus.