Mischiefmaking in ‘Megamind’

This film is steeped in superhero lore. Megamind takes the basic premise of DC hero Superman’s origin story (only survivor of a doomed planet sent to earth who grows up to be a superhero) and turns it on its ear by presenting not one but two Last Sons. One, voiced by Brad Pitt, is a golden child raised by loving parents. The other is a blue child raised by criminals in a penitentiary.

The children are rivals from youth, and the future Megamind grows up with a firm grounding in evil values after being embittered by being showed up in school. His only friend is the talking fish, Minion, who was sent with him from his home planet .

As adults, the two children become super-rivals, their battles playing out through Metro City. Metroman defeats Megamind for years, until Megamind’s orbital laser plot finally fells Metro City’s defender.

Without his nemesis, Megamind takes over the city and quickly becomes bored. Always invested in the theatricality of being a villain, when deprived of his opposite lead, Megamind despairs. He sets out to create a new nemesis, someone to challenge him and lead to more epic confrontations. He replicates Metroman’s powers and adopts a disguise to train the new hero. At the same time, he befriends the Lois Lane stand-in Roxanne Ritchi (using a disguise here as well) and falls for her.

In the end, the replacement Metroman becomes power-mad, and Megamind ends up as the hero, protecting Metro City from his creation. The film is fairly heartfelt, carries an interesting nature-vs-nurture message, and the voice acting by bring a great deal of life and energy to the leads.

The main special feature is the short film Megamind and the Button of Doom. Megamind auctions off all his old evil devices (killer robots and flamethrowers are somewhat frowned upon for heroes) and as he’s finishing up, accidentally activates a giant robot programmed to destroy Metroman and ends up coming after Megamind (who has created a Metroman-esque set of gadgets to replicate the hero’s powers). There is also a filmmaker commentary with director, writers, and producers, talking about the process leading to the making of the film, the actor’s interpretation of the characters, the story, the music and more.

This two-disc set is stuffed with special features, with extras on each disc, including a meet-the-cast feature, deleted scenes featurette talking about the design of the character of Megamind and his lair, a highlight on the animators of the film, a ‘how to draw Megamind’ tutorial, the Megamind music video, a video comic, and more.