Pierre Coffin
36 connections found
Filmography
View:
Connections, in both directions
More annoying, Despicable Me borrows left and right from other, better animated/kids films, lifting ideas from The Grinch, Meet the Robinsons, The Incredibles, A Series of Unfortunate Events and Toy Story (the minions are nothing more than a carbon copy of the alien squeeze toys in that film).
Resembling the underground factory in Metropolis, it's manned by yellow, phallic, sometimes monocular humanoids not unlike the one-eyed blue B.O.B. in Monsters vs. Aliens, or the three-eyed Pizza Planet aliens from the Toy Story movies.
In truth, it’s not the best title from a marketing perspective, since it doesn’t tell you anything about the movie, certainly not in comparison to, say, “Toy Story,” “The Princess and the Frog” or “Finding Nemo.”
Small, yellow, capsule-shaped and coverall wearing, these minions scurry about doing all manner of work for Gru, whom they adore the same way the aliens in the "Toy Story" trilogy worship the all-powerful Claw.
The Bad Guys shared a theme with films like Wreck-It Ralph , Megamind , Despicable Me , and most importantly Zootopia .
With its emphasis on gadget-enhanced heists, and ability to work them into the story even in the service of virtue rather than vice, The Bad Guys recalls the villain battles of Despicable Me .
We’ve seen it in Megamind (2010) and to a much larger degree, Despicable Me (2010).
"The Bad Guys" certainly qualifies as a richer experience than the animated sequels to "Despicable Me" and "The Addams Family," but lags behind all Pixar productions.
Think Despicable Me , Sing , or the most recent animated Grinch cartoon from Illumination as key aspects.
It goes to some creative and funny places, featuring some fine voice talent, but the animation is nothing special, and way too much of it feels like rehashed parts of other animated films, most notably Monsters Inc., Zootopia, and the Despicable Me series.
The Incredibles (2004)
Directed by Brad Bird
influenced Despicable Me (2010)
Plot Themes Visuals Music
More annoying, Despicable Me borrows left and right from other, better animated/kids films, lifting ideas from The Grinch, Meet the Robinsons, The Incredibles, A Series of Unfortunate Events and Toy Story (the minions are nothing more than a carbon copy of the alien squeeze toys in that film).
The world of Despicable Me is reminiscent of The Incredibles, where superheroes and supervillains participate in everyday life, raising their kids and keeping up their suburban homes just like ordinary mortals.
Despicable Me is already instantly inviting comparisons with Brad Bird's The Incredibles and has a chance to ingeniously invert loyalties over to the bad guy's point of view and purpose.
The 3D computer animation Despicable Me is comparable to Pixar’s 2004 The Incredibles, which was about superheros living everyday lives.
What with its surface similarities to The Incredibles and Monsters Inc., it’s easy to see the influence that the much-revered masters of the feature-length ‘toon had on this production.
Like “The Incredibles,” “Despicable Me” uses a mock-’60s-cartoon-hero score and saddles its protagonists with super-nuisances — such as a dismissive French mom (Julie Andrews).
This latest effort from Illumination Entertainment falls in line with its “Despicable Me” and “The Secret Life of Pets” franchises.
Sing is, of course, the big family-friendly holiday movie for this Christmas, hoping to capitalize on audience goodwill built up from the Despicable Me franchise and The Secret Life of Pets.
The producers of the animated family flick "Sing" really, really want you to know it was made by Illumination Entertainment, the same surging animation outfit behind the "Despicable Me" movies.
If it weren’t for the four little Minions who flex their pipes at the opening of “Sing,” you wouldn’t necessarily know that the massively entertaining jukebox musical that follows hails from the same studio that brought you “Despicable Me” and “The Secret Life of Pets.”
All that we see of Santa's North Pole home is a big cottage on a mountain and a scene or two in the elves' toy shop (speaking of the elves, they come off as unfunny rip-offs of the yellow minions from 2010's " Despicable Me ," whether that's the case or not).
The film relies far more on the mere fact of "Santa Claus with swords" or "Easter Bunny with boomerangs and a bad attitude" than it does in giving anybody a distinctive, meaningful personality, and the whole film ends up feeling like a gimmick; a handsome, complex gimmick, but still just one more in the line of DreamWorks's impersonal pop culture melanges, thankfully deprived of any obnoxious jokey references outside of the lazy theft of the minions from Despicable Me .
His shop is manned by Yeti (who look a heck of a lot like Chewbacca) and Elves (who resemble the Minions from “Despicable Me” in almost every way).
Then there are Santa's elves, who provide the kind of silly comic relief that the minions of Despicable Me provided.
Even the deeply adorable stuff — like Baby Tooth, a tiny helper fairy, and Santa’s elves, who are more like an army of rambunctious kittens crossed with Despicable Me’s Minions — cut as often as they cute.
Elves consisting of conical red hats with eyes peering out and skinny legs protruding beneath are this movie's "Despicable Me" minions, lots of little funny, somewhat inept guys that make cute little squeaky noises.
As expected, there are a few gags littered around for grown-ups, notably an overt nod to The Godfather 's 'horse's head in a bed' scene and referencing the Bank of Evil - which finances nefarious supervillain deeds - as "formerly Lehman Brothers".
Some very amusing original set pieces — like an expedition to a department store by a trio of minions and a giddy amusement-park outing for Gru and the girls — fit well next to swift spoofs of Mission: Impossible and The Godfather.
To regain his standing, Gru plots to steal the moon—assuming the Bank of Evil will finance him (shades of Victor Spinetti in Help! (1965), who is “out to rule the world, if he can get a government grant”).
Despicable Me may not match the stratospherically high standards set by Up and WALL-E but that hardly matters when it’s this much fun.
These human elements are significantly stronger than the inevitable climactic feud between Gru and Vector, full of flying and sky-set action that is reminiscent of?and done better in?2009's " Up " and 2010's " How to Train Your Dragon ."
By traipsing over into Up's territory where a surly man with a plan is forced into bonding with children, the shoes become even bigger to fill.
It would help if nobody saw The Incredibles, Up and Toy Story.
Borrowing liberally, plot wise, from “Up,” “Monsters, Inc.” and other Pixar animations, “Despicable Me” is a delightful, funny little movie that had me laughing frequently and loudly.
When James Stewart offers to lasso the moon for Donna Reed in Frank Capra’s classic It’s a Wonderful Life, it’s purely a romantic gesture.
With his bald pate, long nose and black tunic, Gru looks about halfway between Ernst Stavro Blofeld (the villain in several James Bond pics) and Danny DeVito’s Penguin from “Batman Returns,” and he’s more nefarious than either of them.
Some of the apparent homages are a little too familiar, like the evil bank exec modeled after Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss, or the youngest orphan, who seems to be Monsters, Inc.’s Boo, plus a year or so.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026)
Directed by Aaron Horvath
influenced by Despicable Me (2010)
Visuals
…in spirit, it’s not much different from Despicable Me.
When it comes to Illumination’s work, I enjoy the early Despicable Me and Minions films but dislike the most recent handful of those…
Now this new flick isn’t another entry in Illumination’s almost unlimited franchise DESPICABLE ME…
Illumination, the animation division at Comcast’s NBCUniversal responsible for making four Despicable Me features and three Minions features over the past 16 years…
The Despicable Me series, Minions included, has some of the wildest animated action set pieces, and the fight scenes here are genuinely fun.
Pierre Leduc (Despicable Me)…
Combining the age-old family movie concept of a kid wanting to see the world with the recent onslaught of stories about the softer side of villains (“Megamind,” “Despicable Me”), “Hotel Transylvania” is undead on arrival.
This animated update from the makers of the Despicable Me series is out to make up for all that.
The heart and soul of the original Despicable Me was the three sisters.
Last year it was Ben Whishaw in Paddington 2, and now it’s the turn of Benedict Cumberbatch as the eponymous hero of this animated heart-warmer from the makers of Despicable Me.
From the studio that produced the Despicable Me movies and 2012’s terrible The Lorax , The Grinch is the second film the highly profitable family animation studio has made based on Dr. Seuss’s adored text, and it’s the second time the story of the holiday-hating green grouch comes to the silver screen after 2000’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas .
This latest incarnation of Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch has been produced by Illumination, the studio responsible for the Despicable Me franchise, The Secret Life of Pets, and Sing and directed by Yarrow Cheney (who worked on The Lorax as an animator) and Scott Mosier (who’s probably better known as the producer of much of Kevin Smith’s early work).
That about sums up Illumination’s (the Despicable Me franchise and creator of the universally popular minions) rather faithful retelling of Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, where the eponymous green creature’s (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, who works for the angrier dialogue lines but feels miscast elsewhere) mischievous deeds are assisted by gadgets and devices that would not feel out of place in the hands of Gru, the protagonist of those animated features.
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
Directed by Brad Silberling
influenced Despicable Me (2010)
More annoying, Despicable Me borrows left and right from other, better animated/kids films, lifting ideas from The Grinch, Meet the Robinsons, The Incredibles, A Series of Unfortunate Events and Toy Story (the minions are nothing more than a carbon copy of the alien squeeze toys in that film).
One has to wonder if there’s another two hours of footage out there where they bother to slow down to make sense of any of this, but plenty of it clearly just hasn’t been thought out (memories of society before the Sixty Minute War are clear enough that the complete concepts and history of Charles Darwin have been preserved and passed down, yet statues of the Despicable Me minions are mistaken for American deities, and technology is rudimentary and backward apart from the roving megalopolises that were created . .
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
Directed by Jay Roach
influenced Despicable Me (2010)
Characters
Gru, voiced by Steve Carell, is like a cross between Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies and "The Office" boss Michael Scott.
Carell, taking a page or two from Drs. Evil and Horrible (from "Austin Powers" and Joss Whedon's "Sing-Along Blog," respectively), affects an indeterminate Slavic accent to play Gru, but the expert timing is in full force as his character tries mightily to resist the parental tug his three young charges elicit.
The cutely devious henchmen of supervillain Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) from 2010's " Despicable Me " and 2013's " Despicable Me 2 " didn't speak much more than gibberish and were treated strictly as supporting comic relief, but they were the runaway hits of said animated features.
Misreading the love bestowed on the Minions by those millions of kids who have watched Despicable Me dozens of times, writer Brian Lynch (also responsible for the final wringing out of the Shrek franchise, Puss in Boots ) provides an origin story and then another washed-out and watered-down super-villain plot.
It's similar to the post-movie stuff we saw in the two "Despicable Me"s, where the Minions broke the fourth wall with visual 3-D jokes, put their jibber-jabber into song and slapped and pounded each other in classic cartoon fashion.
Since the first “Despicable Me” film with Steve Carell as Gru, the villain and the Minions as his helpers, it was just a matter of time until the little yellow colored creatures with goggles had their own film.
The picture is the prequel to “Despicable Me,” taking place in the years — millennia, actually — before they hooked up with the dastardly but undeniably delightful master villain Gru.
More annoying, Despicable Me borrows left and right from other, better animated/kids films, lifting ideas from The Grinch, Meet the Robinsons, The Incredibles, A Series of Unfortunate Events and Toy Story (the minions are nothing more than a carbon copy of the alien squeeze toys in that film).
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)
Directed by Phil Lord
influenced Despicable Me (2010)
Themes Visuals
Despicable Me, one of those non-Pixar animated efforts that actually turns out to be good (happily, we’ve seen an upswing in the number of such worthy achievements, as evidenced by the likes of How to Train Your Dragon and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), is a witty, congenial lark that obviously won’t have the staying power of Toy Story 3 but serves quite nicely as a pleasing placeholder in the cinematic summer of 2010.
Despicable Me falls somewhere in the middle range of animated films targeted at kids, featuring none of the delirious wit of How to Train Your Dragon and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and certainly not the outright Pixar genius, but also absent the mindless pandering and obvious plotting we all fear in children's films.
Forget comparisons with Pixar, hardly a fair first-time benchmark; it’s closer to the nimble work of Sony’s guys on the underrated Monster House and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.