Despicable Me (2010) Reviews: What Critics Said

Editorial note: This is a roundup of published criticism of Despicable Me. Celluloid has not screened the film for this piece, and it carries no Celluloid rating. The critics are named and linked under Sources.

Is Despicable Me worth watching?

Most critics say yes: Illumination’s first feature was widely received as a warm, funny family film whose villain-hero and army of yellow minions bring plenty of charm to a familiar redemption story. Reviewers praised Steve Carell’s voice work as Gru, the three orphan girls and a steady supply of visual jokes. The main reservation, put most strongly at The A.V. Club, is that the story leans on a well-worn formula and loses some of its bite once Gru starts to soften.

What is Despicable Me about?

Gru is a suburban supervillain determined to prove he is the greatest in the world by stealing the Moon. To pull it off, he adopts three orphaned sisters, Margo, Edith and Agnes, intending to use them as pawns in his scheme, but the bond that grows between them makes him question the criminal life he has always known. Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud directed from a screenplay by Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul. Steve Carell voices Gru, with Jason Segel as his rival Vector, Russell Brand as the inventor Dr Nefario, Julie Andrews as Gru’s mother, Will Arnett as Mr Perkins and Kristen Wiig as Miss Hattie. Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier Ellis and Elsie Fisher voice the girls, and Coffin also voices several of the minions. Released in 2010, the film runs 95 minutes. Cast, certificates and streaming details are on the Despicable Me film page.

What critics praised

Writing for Salon, Andrew O’Hehir ranked it the second-best computer-animated family film of that summer, behind only Toy Story 3. He thought it used 3D with elegance and nerve, found its images crisp, colourful and frequently funny if less detailed than Pixar’s, and credited Carell with giving real complexity to a villain who could have been a one-joke caricature. For O’Hehir, the mix of sweetness, silliness and occasional dark humour gives adults plenty to enjoy.

Kim Newman, in Empire, admired the stream of imaginative visual jokes, several sharpened by the 3D, and found the three orphans genuinely appealing. He argued that the film works because of its heart: the girls bring out both the comedy and an unexpected tenderness as Gru is torn between his moon heist and their ballet recital. Tom Huddleston of Time Out saw a comfortable, traditional family film that turns away from the knowing, Shrek-style cynicism then in fashion in favour of a warm redemption story. Carell’s peculiar Central European accent makes Gru a hard sell at first, he wrote, but the character opens up once the well-drawn girls arrive, and Russell Brand and Julie Andrews give strong support.

In Screen Daily, Brent Simon singled out the inventive visual design, the minions’ wordless slapstick, which he expected to earn the biggest laughs from children, and a playful score by Heitor Pereira and Pharrell Williams. Looking back in 2024 for The A.V. Club, Jesse Hassenger ranked the original as the best film in the franchise, praising its immediately appealing premise, Carell’s performance and an endearingly odd-looking design, and suggested it might be the best thing Illumination has made.

Where critics were divided

Tasha Robinson of The A.V. Club was the most critical reviewer at the time of release. She admired the expressive animation and found Gru an unusually nuanced villain, but argued that he is far more entertaining before the orphans reform him. In her view the film is a delight until its formula of a grouch softened by children demands sudden, unconvincing changes of character, and it finishes in well-trodden territory.

Others raised smaller points. Simon found the story familiar and undemanding, with echoes of the Grinch in Gru. Huddleston felt the film lacks a proper antagonist, finding Segel’s Vector more irritating than menacing, and thought the globe-trotting plot a little overcrowded. Newman judged it short of the first rank of computer animation, and O’Hehir granted that it largely remixes familiar family-film themes and gags.

Who is it for?

The reviews point to a family film that works for children and adults alike, with the minions’ physical comedy aimed at younger viewers and drier jokes for their parents. It is rated PG in the US and U in the UK. Viewers who prefer their animated villains unreformed may side with Robinson, while those who take to the minions can follow them into later instalments such as Minions & Monsters.

The critical verdict

Critics mostly found Despicable Me a likeable, inventive family comedy that makes the most of a familiar story, helped by Carell’s Gru, the three girls and the minions. Hassenger later called it the high point of the series. The strongest reservation came from Robinson, who felt the redemption formula flattens the character that makes the first half so much fun. On balance, reviewers saw a warm, funny film rather than a landmark.