Movie Day!

Took two of my nephews to see Despicable Me this afternoon. My youngest nephew, Mark, has been asking me for weeks to take him, and we were all set to go on opening day when he came down with an ear infection and a solid week of 102-degree fevers. Guess what I heard every day for the last week? "You said you would take me to see Bispicable Me...."

The movie itself was fairly good, notwithstanding that the best parts don't actually involve the main characters/actors at all. The Minions (small, yellow-green creatures who work for Gru, the protagonist) provided the majority of the entertainment. The movie consisted of a repeating loop of Scene-with-Main-Characters-followed-by-all-too-short-Snippet-of-Minions-and-their-hijinx.

Steve Carell is making far too many movies, for my tastes (another Carell offering, "Dinner for Schmucks" is opening in a few weeks), and they seem to be getting weaker with each release.

As always, the highlight is watching the kid's faces. Mikey (12) wasn't always quite enthusiastic, but Mark (5), laughed his little ass off. I can watch that kid giggle for hours; it's just that amazing to me.

However, I didn't leave the theatre totally disappointed. In fact, if there was one character who was actually worth the price of admission, it was Agnes, the smallest of three orphaned sisters taken in by the evil Gru. Agnes steals the show, but unfortunately, there's not enough of her for my tastes.If you don't leave that movie wishing you had a brace of little Agneses of your own, there's something wrong with you, because I certainly wished I had an Agnes. Or three.

There was, as there usually is in these sorts of movies, that endearing moment near the end which makes you go "Awwwwwww...", which is what I suppose most people really go to these CG-generated movies for in the first place. All-in-all, so long as you don't have to cough up a lung for tickets (really, $25 for tickets to a 12:00 Monday matinee? I could get laid for that!), it's probably worth taking your younger kids to see it.