Despicable Me

The villains at the center of this amiable CGI movie are straight out of the James Bond playbook. After rival bad guy Vector begins to steal some of the planet's most notable landmarks, the borderline incompetent Gru hatches a plan to shrink the moon (it's basically a one-upmanship contest between these guys). He adopts three tiny orphan girls to help him, even though he knows as much about parenting as he does about taking over the world. It isn't long before Gru is squeezing in dance recitals and amusement park outings between world-domination plans. The great voice cast (Russell Brand, Jason Segal, Will Arnett, Kristen Wiig, and Julie Andrews) is headed by Steve Carell as the heavily accented and occasionally English-mangling Gru. The funny script is short on actual plot, but many scenes pop, thanks to the zippy animation and panoramic 3-D. And even if Despicable Me doesn't need a bunch of little yellow helium-voiced minions running around, they’re a kick every time they’re onscreen.