TL and I took all the children to a screening of Universal’s new cartoon Despicable Me at the Vue Cinema in Leicester Square. Just as the lights dimmed, he produced a newspaper. ‘Just in case,’ he smiled.
I tutted. ‘Imagine if this film were as good as the Jungle Book and we were the first people to see it,’ I said, trying to get him into the spirit of the thing.
Well, you know what? I’m not saying it was as good as the Jungle Book. That really is a hard act to follow. But it’s certainly the best film I’ve seen for a long, long time – and that’s saying a lot for a movie featuring hundreds of little yellow minions and an arch villain called Gru.
Gru, played by Steve Carell with a strange Eastern European accent, is aided and abetted by the evil Dr Nefario (Russell Brand, who actually seeemed to be acting for once) and a host of the bouncy minions in an attempt to snatch and shrink the moon. This will prove that he’s a better underworld mastermind than the up-and-coming new criminal on the block, Vector, a geek gone to the bad. In the meantime, Gru ends up adopting three cute orphans in order to pull off his dastardly plans, little suspecting they will melt his stony heart ……
The film is crackling with imagination and wonderful visual gags. Look out for the hidden pyramid. Hang on to your lunch as we go down the rollercoaster at the fair. And, when Gru tries to finance his moon mission at the Bank of Evil, don’t miss the sign announcing it was ‘formerly Lehmann Brothers’ – this drew heartfelt guffaws from our audience.
Suffice to say that TL’s newspaper didn’t get read at all – and a smashing, moon-grabbing time was had by all.