The story is about Gru, a super-villain comfortable in his solitary life until a new rival swoops in and takes the spotlight from him.  Determining Vector’s (the new villain) one weakness to be Girl Scout cookies, Gru adopts three orphan girls who had tried to sell them to him previously.

You can imagine what happens, in general terms, as Gru works on stealing back the Shrink Ray he needs from Vector, the girls are working on making the best of what appears at first to be a bad situation.  It’s not a full-on tears movie, but I’ll admit to misting up a tiny bit for the book at the end (you’ll see).  The minions don’t quite steal the show, but they are funny in way that adds to the movie, not distracts from it.

All in all, it was a quite enjoyable time.  It’s kind of unfortunate that all animated movies get judged against Pixar’s best now, but Despicable Me holds it’s own.  See it.

To be honest, my son and I both enjoyed it for what it was, an adaptation of a cartoon, aimed at kids.  There are flaws, oh definitely there are flaws, some of which I will detail, but the biggest flaw with the movie is not its fault – expectations.  For some reason, people seem to think M. Night Shymalan’s name being attached to a movie means it might be good.  I don’t know why that is, considering he hasn’t been involved in a good movie since, what, 2002?  His dialog is trite, there is talking during scenes when there shouldn’t be any, and not enough when there is something that needs more description.  Best example is the scene with Sokka and Princess Yue meeting.  The voiceover is completely unnecessary.  The heavy eye contact, followed by scenes showing them together, would’ve been more effective.

The effects are cool, but I had to laugh when someone referred to the fighting as ‘turn-based’.  The combatants do seem to stand around for a few seconds to let the other guy get his bending going.  A more fluid mix of martial arts and bending (with 125% less slomo), though harder to choreograph and film, would’ve been a massive improvement to watchability.  Seriously, I’m imagining it right now, and it’s awesome.

I think I have an advantage in not having seen any of the source material.  The story is new and cool, even if it is poorly told in this movie.  I want to see more.  The problem the moviemakers will have is if I go ahead and watch the cartoon instead of any future live action movie (assuming this even does well enough to get the next chapter made).

The whole family went to see Toy Story 3 this weekend, and of course we all loved it.  Plenty of action, plenty of heart, and a great ending.  But seriously, you knew that, right?  I don’t want to spoil anything (there are some important twists that need to be surprises), so just consider this a recommendation to go see the movie.  I don’t care who you are, kids, no kids, whatever.  You’ll be glad you did.

Most folks were already there when Jen, Mattie and I got there.  The first night began with some swimming, but was mostly eating, getting everything squared away in the right spots, and herding 5 children into bed.  That went better than expected for most of the days, actually.

The rest of the days, the kids wanted to play in the water.  I am the only adult that cannot swim, but thankfully there is a shallow section and plenty of life jackets.  Thomas and Ethan spent much of the water time goofing with the floating weeds, piling them up and so on.

The next day, everyone was brave enough to take the various paddle boats and canoes out.  The pictures from that will all be at the bottom of the post, please note you see me in a canoe.  We basically went in a very short circle, as my very pregnant wife made the canoe just a little tippy (at least, it felt that way to me).  Never again.  Anyway, the wheel to the car didn’t fly off on the way down this time, stranding us in Fredonia and making us miserable, so I count that as a win.

The movie starts with a short sequence to establish how the team came together.  Face (Bradley Cooper) and Hannibal (Liam Neeson) were working to take down a corrupt Mexican General but end up captured and about to be killed.  Hannibal escapes, and while en route to try and rescue Face (who ran afoul of the General by bedding his wife) just HAPPENS to run into BA Baracus (Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson)  in the classic A-Team van.  That’s probably the weakest part of the first part of the movie, how, in the middle of the desert, Smith stumbles across the only former Army Ranger in Mexico.

Anyway, they hit up a Military hospital for a pilot, which is how they encounter HM ‘Howlin Mad’ Murdock, who they find off the psych ward in a stolen doctor’s coat, stitching up a bullet wound on BA in a Harry Potter-esque lightning bolt pattern.  One harrowing helo ride later (nearly dropping BA out of the open door, instilling his fear of flight), they’ve lured the evil General over the border, where he gets blasted by an F-22.  Nice.

8 years and 80 missions later, the team does a job in Baghdad (stealing back US $100 printing plates) that goes wrong when they get back to base.  You next get to see not one but four jailbreaks (as the government was smart enough to put the team in widely seperated prisons) and they are back ‘on the jazz’.

It may be because I grew up with the show, but I loved the references to the old version, whether it’s drugging BA to get him on planes, BA throwing a dude, Murdock’s hand puppet, the iconic van, and more.  There are some great action set pieces, Murdock stealing the show, as crazy as ever, and Liam Neeson definitely looks like a genuine tough guy (though the voice is off).  Face is smooth, no doubt, but too much of his scamming is off-screen.  I’d love to see more of him talking his way into and out of places, getting the gear they needed, and so on.

One thing I’m curious about is how they are going to do a sequel.  It’s not a guarantee, especially considering the somewhat lackluster box office numbers.  My buddies and I are calling a drug lord villain though, which could keep up with the ‘helping a small town/the little guy’ motif of the show, while still being a big enough deal for some kick-ass action scenes.  I’d watch.  I had a lot of fun with this one, not very deep but that works considering the source.

I mean, there are some great stories – great stories are art.  In modern games especially, there are beautiful images – images can be art.  I have certainly been moved by games, perhaps not to the same extent as a really outstanding book, but there are levels to everything.  I probably rank games  above most picture art, as far as that goes, but it’s different for everyone.

My favorite ‘video game as art’ example is Half-Life.  Now, I don’t enjoy horror movies, typically.  But the beginning of HL plays out like a horror movie, that is actually supremely enjoyable to me.  It produced real tension, as I crept through the ruined Black Mesa facility.  Doors bursting open, me wildly swinging the crow bar until the headcrab zombie was dead, then laughing and shaking my head at my own reaction.  That’s art, to me.

What causes the outcry about stuff like this is the fact that we gamers are a prickly bunch.  We get derided as childish, lazy, violent-offenders-in-waiting who play killing simulators and brain-numbing MMOs.  So we are touchy when a major media outlet of any kind takes a shot at us.  Even when it’s one we generally like (despite a favorable review for Star Wars: Episode 1).

Will they send 'em cheesy movies, the worst they can find?

There is a simulation going on in Russia right now, with a team of  ‘astronauts’ living in a series of modules designed to resemble a ship flying to Mars.  They are stuck together in there for 520 days, about how long it would take to fly to Mars, to test whether 6 random scientists could stay level-headed and relaxed after all that time.  This line, though, kills me:

“Well aware of this hazard, crew members equipped themselves accordingly. For instance, French participant Romain Charles said he was bringing along a guitar so he could entertain the other team members.”

I’m SURE that’s what I’d want if I was locked in a spaceship with a bunch of other dudes for a year and a half, and one of them is a French guy with a guitar.  I sure hope the rest of them have some noise isolating headphones.

• It’s fast – you don’t see as many little hiccups when scrolling through apps or switching screens.
• Google Navigation is legit.  Need to play with it more, but seems more user friendly. Better integration.
• Battery life – I know there’s an app or two I didn’t reinstall, but I seem to get MUCH better battery life with similar use.  Normally, with heavy use during the day, the battery bar is yellow.  I’ve yet to see yellow in that situation since.
• Shake Awake actually works pretty consistently.
• I think this is new, being able to bring in two Google accounts in the GMail app is great.

I liked my Hero before, but it’s even better now.  Just wish we hadn’t had to wait so long!  Hopefully 2.2 won’t be another 6 months off.