Despicable Me (2010)

I loved this movie--not so much for it's brilliance (this is no 'Toy Story 3'), but it's well executed simplicity. It is an animated feature that's low-maintenance, good-looking and modestly original.
It's the story of a world-class supervillain named Gru (Steve Carell), whose conception of evil is little-boy mischievousness. Yes, he likes to torture kids — say, by popping their animal balloon with a pin — but only after amusing them: creating the animal balloon he intends to pop. And now, as Gru tells his army of minions — tiny, goggled yellow marshmallow creatures who are loyal but not too bright — he plans to steal the moon by shrinking it. Why? Hard to say. But he is obsessed with the idea. Problems arise early with this not-so-fiendish plan. Of late, he's been dwarfed in nastiness by the geeky young Vector (Jason Segel), who managed to swipe the Great Pyramid at Giza (again, why? It seems to be 'because I can', which perhaps plays into the hacker mentality--wrecking havoc for havoc's sake). Until Gru can impress the evil world that he's he's got what it takes to pull this off, the Bank of Evil won't give him a loan (the while Bank of Evil concept is fabulous, especially as we confront the all-too-real banking situation these days). So, how will he top Vector? His plan is to infiltrate his lair and take the technology. But Vector has a geeks obsession with security and this is going to be no easy task. The one chink in an otherwise finely developed armor is that Vector has a sweet tooth. So Gru adopts three orphan girls (two of whom could be 80--they are named Edith, Agnes, and Margot) to infiltrate Vector's laboratory on the pretense of selling him Girl Scout cookies. The girls, of course, are the adversaries he really has to worry about. He is completely unprepared for the transformation that fatherhood will wreck upon his life. While he's shooting and shrinking the moon, they find a villain's heart and warm it. By the end, he is a goner. Recommended for all ages.