Ever since its first trailer that released last month in February, the newest Megamind movie “Megamind vs The Doom Syndicate,” has gotten a ton of backlash even before its official release. Fans have complained about numerous aspects of the trailer, such as the extremely poor animation quality, Will Ferrel not starring as a voice actor for Megamind, and the movie coming out directly to streaming. I wanted to watch this film for myself and decide if it really is as bad as the audience says it is.
This movie’s plot is basic and simple, with little character development and no dramatic twists. The main story has Megamind, the new hero of Metro City, become a superhero for the first time from being a villain. His old supervillain team, The Doom Syndicate, breaks out of jail after seeing Megamind on the news receiving the key to the city on television. He spends the first half of the movie trying to cover up the fact that he is a hero, trying to convince the Doom Syndicate that he is still a villain to avoid a fight. This ends up being useless because they find out anyway. Once they find out Megamind betrayed him, he gets beaten up and is forced to run away. Megamind’s character development was that he realized that he could work with other people instead of doing everything by himself. The problem with this is that he already learned this in the first movie, and this type of development is boring and overused. The movie ends with Megamind saving the city from the Doom Syndicate and their plan to take a chunk of the city to the moon.
The animation in this movie is disgraceful. In 2024, this movie looks worse than the first, which came out in 2010. This animation is at the same level as the children’s tv show “Cocomelon,” in some shots even worse. It is surprising that Dream-works would release a movie with such low quality when their recent hit “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” had achieved amazing feats in animation. Clearly the studio did not spend much time and care for this movie, as many mistakes can be spotted even in the trailer.
The voice acting in this movie is even more proof that this movie had an insanely low budget. Megamind, originally voiced by Will Ferrel, was replaced by Keith Ferguson, who sounds nothing like him. Most of the original voice actors did not come back and were replaced by ones who did a horrible job. All the characters lack emotion and feelings in their voices, instead sounding dead and lifeless. It is as if the actors got the script and started recording the same day, taking no time to learn their roles.
Minion, Megamind’s personal helper, has a mini side plot where he leaves Megamind to venture off and find a new boss for himself. The writers could have turned this into an interesting plot line, such as minion joining the doom syndicate and betraying Megamind, but they did not. He instead works at a donut shop. It feels like a wasted opportunity for the character, it could have been used in much more interesting ways. Overall, this movie was a 3/10.
