Tom McGrath
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For fans of the Richard Donner "Superman" movies, there's even a hammy Brando-inflected turn by Ferrell as Metro Man's white-haired Space Dad.
The story has fun with the origins of “Superman” as a baby Megamind ( Will Ferrell ) and another infant are jettisoned from their soon-to-be-destroyed planet.
I liked the idea a lot: A riff on the Superman origin, with another baby that arrived on earth at the same time but turned out to be a super-villain.
The opening act details the history of Megamind and Metroman, life-long nemeses sent to Earth in a sequence that clearly parodies the opening act of “Superman.”
Tina Fey as Roxanne Ritchi: She’s our Lois Lane just like Metroman and Megamind are hybrids of Superman.
His comical homage to Marlon Brando as Jor-El from 1978's Superman is a hoot, and his garbled pronunciation of school and Metro City are reminiscent of Ferrell's goofy riff on San Diego in Anchorman.
There are a few similarities to last summer’s funnier and sweeter “Despicable Me,” and even more ideas teased out of “The Incredibles.”
Toss in a little of "The Incredibles" and you have an OK entertainment that's instantly forgettable.
Unlike Pixar’s vastly superior The Incredibles , which affirmed the heroic archetype even as it cross-examined it, Megamind suggests that sometimes the hero isn’t really a hero at all.
If you crossed The Incredibles with Despicable Me , you'd end up with something a lot like DreamWorks Animation's new 3D toon Megamind .
MEGAMIND wants to be the DreamWorks Animation version of Pixar’s “The Incredibles.”
Had them both in the far-better “The Incredibles.”
This animated film from the DreamWorks stable (Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon) is not as funny as Despicable Me and not even in the same intergalactic solar system as The Incredibles.
The incipient promise of Dragon was given a savage beating by Shrek Forever After , but that was to be expected from a Shrek picture; it's only now that the corpse of the very short DreamWorks Renaissance has been officially embalmed with Megamind , the rare kind of motion picture which not only puts all of its funniest stuff in the trailer, but in which that same funny stuff is actually less successful, given its proper context.
And children's films lately have been playing to that notion by centering on figures usually typecast as bad guys — a rat in Ratatouille, an ogre in Shrek, a criminal mastermind in Despicable Me.
"Megamind," though, is by no means a knockoff, and if you get past the eerie coincidences (characters named Minion, the lead's mangled diction), you see that it stakes out different territory, playing around with superhero mythology (especially Superman) in much the same way as "Shrek" poked fun at fairytales.
Luckily, kids have short memories, but it's still no sure bet they'll respond to the latest animated entry in the post-ironic Shrek vein.
The Bad Guys shared a theme with films like Wreck-It Ralph , Megamind , Despicable Me , and most importantly Zootopia .
We’ve seen it in Megamind (2010) and to a much larger degree, Despicable Me (2010).
This one belongs to that spirited bunch like “Zootopia” and “Megamind.”
It started all the way back in 1998 when Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson's Antz came out just one month before John Lasseter’s A Bug's Life , and movie-goers have been drawing lines between projects ever since – from Shark Tale (2004) vs. Finding Nemo (2003), to Megamind (2010) vs.
Will Ferrell doesn't simply lend a recognizable voice to Megamind, he creates a complete character, just as Mike Myers did in Shrek and Tom Hanks did as Woody in Toy Story.
Probably the cleverest thing about the movie is having Megamind’s minion—named Minion (David Cross)—designed after the infamous Ro-Man from the grade Z cult classic Robot Monster (1953).
The look of Minion—a robot/gorilla body with a fishbowl head—may be an obvious homage to the title character of the 1953 grade-Z 3D movie Robot Monster, but horrid Hal Stewart apparently takes his name from the first two modern-day Green Lanterns: Hal Jordan and John Stewart.
That is, the most famous voice talent that money, and the cachet of Dreamworks animation honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg, can buy, e.g., Will Ferrell as the title not-quite villain, Brad Pitt as his fatuous comic-bookish hero opposite number Metro Man, Tina Fey as a kind of post-modern, " His Girl Friday "-inflected Lois Lane type, Jonah Hill as her schluby, not-very-nice-inside cameraman who is unwittingly given superpowers, with ill result, and David Cross as Megamind's hench-thing -- one of the movie's most inspired creations, as it happens: a super-smart fish in a water-filled dome screwed atop an ape body, an homage of sorts to the anti-classic sci-fi cheesefest " Robot Monster ."
Then again, so does the movie itself, with a story that one can easily envision as coming from 1989 (there are definite echoes of "Ghostbusters II" in its finale).
The movie's visual wit is evident in its salutes to the likes of Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Rube Goldberg's famously complicated contraptions.
The practice has always seemed a tad desperate, going all the way back to the studio’s debut feature, 1998’s ANTZ , in which Woody Allen voiced an ant going through an existential identity crisis.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)
Directed by Phil Lord
influenced Megamind (2010)
Plot Characters
Roxanne Ritchi (voice of Tina Fey) is a TV news reporter whose cameraman Bernard (voice of Jonah Hill) has a serious crush (a device overused already in "Scream" and as recently as "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs").
Roxanne also could have afforded to be a little softer as a heroine, sort of like Anna Faris' lovable reporter from 2009's wonderful " Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs ;" for a woman who claims that you "shouldn't judge a person from what's on the outside," she comes off as hypocritical in the way she's always shrugging off nerdy Hal's initially harmless, sincere advances.
Sony Pictures Animation put out Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs earlier this year, in 3D – the story of a brilliant inventor with no social skills who made a gizmo that turned weather into food.
Further, news reporter Roxanne is borrowed from the spunky weather girl of Sony's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
Of course, the concept of infants with not so infantile voices is nothing new (see: Stewie on Family Guy, the Look Who’s Talking movies), but in the capable hands of director Tom McGrath (co-director of the three Madagascar movies) and screenwriter Michael McCullers (Mike Myers’ collaborator on the second and third Austin Powers pictures), The Boss Baby has an agenda all its own.
Alas, the stroke of casting luck is one of the only notable aspects of director Tom McGrath (Madagascar and its two sequels) and screenwriter Michael McCullers’ (Mr. Peabody & Sherman) feature adaptation of Marla Frazee’s picture book.
The conceit makes perfect sense, and doesn’t sound all that complicated, but it still makes your head hurt, because the director, Tom McGrath (of the “Madagascar” films), working from a script by Michael McCullers, tries to use the it’s-all-in-Tim’s-mind premise to turn “The Boss Baby” into a variation on “Inside Out”: not just a daffy comic trifle about an authoritarian tot, but a timeless tale of the imagination, and of how kids use it to ease their heartache.
Fortunately, “Madagascar” director Tom McGrath has a bottomless well of visually clever ways to bounce between fantasy and reality.
Director Tom McGrath previously made all three of DreamWorks’ Madagascar movies (with Eric Darnell as co-director), but The Boss Baby doesn’t have as many laughs, or even as much heart, as those hit franchise outings.
Now, with Tom McGrath ("Madagascar") at the helm of "Megamind," it's back to the same old Shrek -- er, dreck.
Director Tom McGrath (2008's " Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa ") and screenwriters Alan J. Schoolcraft and Brent Simons aren't reinventing the wheel here, and the overall heart and dramatic undercurrents of Pixar's oeuvre elude them, but their inspired voice talent and frequent witticism help to keep things from feeling too stale.
The similarly-themed but more superhero specific “Megamind” is directed by DreamWorks vet Tom McGrath (“Madagascar,” “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa”).
Like Scar in "The Lion King," Megamind turns his homeland into a dump.
Now with no enemy to fight, Megamind—who resembles a Smurfified version of a Mars Attacks! alien—finds life dull and pointless.
Hotel Transylvania (2012)
Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky
influenced The Boss Baby: Family Business (2021)
Visuals
Creepy Girl looks designed for a “Hotel Transylvania” movie but was summoned by the wrong Ouija board.
Compared with The Incredibles and Up and Ratatouille and Finding Nemo, Megamind feels … cartoonish.
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Directed by Joe Russo
influenced The Boss Baby: Family Business (2021)
Tim (James Marsden, The Stand) is an adult now, happily married to a loving wife (Eva Longoria), with two daughters, Tabitha (Ariana Greenblatt, Avengers: Infinity War ) and baby, Tina (Amy Sedaris, The Mandalorian ).