MEGAMIND takes the superhero genre and looks at it from the side of the villain, jamming lots of interesting ideas into the plot. What makes a villain? Is it inherent in their makeup or is it because of their environment and upbringing? Can it be as simple as ultimate power corrupting ultimately? Can it really be solved by the love of a good woman? Is being the hero really a gift or a curse?

Unfortunately, whilst the film is jammed full of ideas, it never really grabs ahold of them and makes anything interesting and exciting out of them. It is too busy making its riffs on other stories (ie the bits it's pinched) accurate to really make them funny or interesting. Few of the jokes actually work and the voice cast are far too talented to be blamed for the lack of any true humour in here. The opening is pure SUPERMAN and the setup certainly owes a lot to the Man of Steel, but whilst Roxanne Richie is the Lois Lane figure she is also reminiscent of CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS' intrepid weather girl. Megamind's minion (a fish in a robot suit) smacks of both FRANKENSTEIN and ROBOT MONSTER, whilst the whole creation goes bad storyline comes direct from THE INCREDIBLES (which remains the cartoon superhero movie to see).

The film is also made in 3D which means there are far too many sequences of characters whizzing around through the skies throwing things at each other whilst the camera whips around them all over the place. Fast action sequences are fine in their place, but there are too many here to justify the 3D tag.

Will Ferrell is likeable as the blue-skinned Megamind and Tina Fey does a good job as Roxanne Richie, but neither gives full reign to their comedic potential. Brad Pitt as Metroman is fine, if unmemorable, which can also be said of Jonah Hill as Roxanne's rejected cameraman who becomes the all-powerful and all-vengeful Titan.

The soundtrack, though, is ace with some surprising, but great, choices for a film like this.

MEGAMIND moves fast enough to please the younger members of the audience, but the grown ups that go along with them will be rueing the opportunities for something a bit deeper that have been sadly missed.

Trailer