espicable Me's teasers and trailers seemed to represent a few different movies, and that's reflected by the general segregation of comedy styles that the film begins with. At the film's start, Gru (Steve Carrell) handles the dark comedy, the trio of orphans get the cutesy comedy, and the minions handle the slapstick. As the film progresses, though, these lines begin to blur, building to a strong emotional finale and a satisfyingly complete tale. (This is one of those rare non-Pixar animated films that doesn't seem destined for sequel-dom.)

The tale of rival villains isn't terribly original. Nor is the idea of a villain having his heart melted by adorable children. But the way Despicable Me blends these two ideas is just fantastic. There's humor, action, and heart -- what more could you want from an animated film?

Also notable is the way the star-studded voice cast handles their characters. While there are a ton of big names filling out the roster, most of them use accents which render them familiar but not too much so. It's a different route than many animated films take, and it's refreshing. Julie Andrews and Steve Carrell especially do well at straddling the line between their trademark voices and their characters' accents. The voice that steals the movie, however, is the adorable Elsie Fisher as Agnes. Almost every line gets either a laugh or an "Aw..." (On a related note, I love that the orphan girls are named Edith, Margo, and Agnes.