I love Steve Carell. Like with Paul Giamatti, I will see just about anything Carell is in just to bask in his unique balance of warmth and dryness and fearlessness. Despicable Me is a middling movie made better by casting him. Carell plays Gru, a run-down, insecure supervillain who has hit a professional wall, polishing his tarnished infamy alone in his exquisitely-detailed lair. Jason Segal plays Vector, the biggest brick in that wall, an up and coming super-villain with technological advantage but without a sense of legacy or greatness as much as self-aggrandizement and showmanship. Enter three orphaned girls and a demanding bank loan manager (Will Arnett) and you have the makings of what wanted to be a comic heist movie but is more a sweet redemption movie in clumsy comic heist drag.
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