Gru vs Megamind Review

It’s been a bit since the last Death Battle review. You may be wondering what the hell happened. Why didn’t I review Bakugo vs Reze? Well it was for two reasons. One is that I had family over and didn’t have the time, and the second was I barely had anything to say on it.

Bakureze is one of the most aggressively mid episodes I’ve ever seen. It was already a bad idea from the start. The matchup only existing because of stupid Twitter slander wars that Death Battle should be above. The animation was fine I guess, but nothing special, and I don’t know enough about either character if they did them justice. To be blunt, it wouldn’t have made for a good review, so I opted to skip it. if you want my quick dirty thoughts on it, it exists. That is all.

But I definitely wasn’t skipping Gru vs Megamind. This is one of those big legacy matchups people have been wanting for years and it’s easy to see why. Thematically it’s perfect and there’s an actual debate to be had with who wins. Which is a breath of fresh fucking air after we’ve had so many stomp matchups lately.

Now I like both these series, but I’m not huge on them. I’ve only seen a handful of the Despicable Me movies, and both Minion films, and they were fine. Nothing great but decent for what they were. And I do like Megamind quite a bit, but it’s not among my Dreamworks movies or anything. Shame it never got a sequel, that would have been awesome.

So I’m not coming into this like a fan who’s requested this for years. I’m more of a casual enjoyer who’s looking for a fun fight. Given all that these guys have though we should be in for one, and it’s debatable enough that I have no idea who wins. Again, very refreshing for this season. But how did the episode handle that megalomaniacal matchup? Let’s see.

Analysis

I might as well get this out of the way right now. If you’re going into this expecting a super deep dive into what these guys can do with tons of calcs and a huge overview of the entirety of their arsenals, this isn’t the episode for you. I know people come to this show for the VS debate aspect, but for some matchups I don’t think focusing on the feats and the calcs is the best way to go about it.

I’ve said in the past that I think cartoon-based fights don’t really work with traditional VS debate logic. I was mainly referring to things involving classic animation like Looney Tunes or Popeye and the like, but it can also apply to Gru vs Megamind. This is a battle between two goofy cartoon villains; if they took it seriously that would be missing the entire point. It would be like doing a Batman episode and making him act like he did in the 60’s show, assuming it isn’t that specific version they’re using.

To put it bluntly, this is more focused on the characters and their stories. Which works perfectly fine for this specific episode. That’s not to say that they don’t cover any feats or go over their arsenals. They do cover a lot of what they have. Not all of it, and I do know there are people who claim Death Battle downplayed both, but I think they covered the most important parts of them. Or at least the parts that the majority of people recognise.

Gru’s analysis did show off a lot of his gadgets. His flying ship, the freeze ray, shrink ray, and they briefly mentioned the fart gun. You know all the gadgets he uses most in the movies. But the biggest focus on his Minions. Which makes sense considering they’re the biggest part of his arsenal.

Honestly it focused so much on the Minions, it kind of felt like an analysis on them and not Gru. It’s still largely about Gru, like the Minions are a big factor in Gru’s character, but it felt like it was half about Gru and half about them. Although let’s be honest, most of the people watching this will be coming for the Minions. They are basically the faces of Despicable Me at this point.

Megamind’s analysis had a similar quirk but not as bad. It had a good chunk dedicated to Minion and the Brain Bots, but it was brief. For Megamind they focused more on his personal arsenal, mainly the DE-Gun since it is his primary weapon. Going over the different functions and what it could do.

They also showed off his mech suits, but I kind of wish they’d shown off more of his Metroman suit. I know Metroman’s limits aren’t shown, and he barely used the suit in the first place, I was just wanted to learn more about it. I do like they brought in the videogame just to give him more since he only has the one movie. In fact, they’re so desperate for material they used footage from what looks like badly animated fanfiction. The animation quality really took a dive in those parts.

Ok I was going to do a bit where I continued to ignore the sequels, but I’m just going to drop that because it would only feel more forced from here. Yeah, they brought up those godawful follow ups, but strangely they didn’t focus on them much. Not that I can fucking blame them but given how people were arguing their presence gave Megamind stuff to help him win it feels odd.

Granted even with that it’s apparently close, so I guess they thought it wasn’t worth making the audience suffer through the footage. They pretty much stuck to the first movie, and that was the best move since that’s the one everyone likes.

As for how it handled both characters stories, I thought they did a good job. It showed why both turned good and the kinds of villains they were. I do wish it went into more details on the relationships that turned them good, but we get just enough to make us understand their importance so it’s fine.

These analyses are good. Yes, I do wish it covered more given how much they have, but since when have Death Battle covered every minute detail. They just need to cover the big stuff and make sure the pacing is good and the writing entertain. Which they do.

It’s definitely more comedic than other analyses, but that works for this episode. There are some good lines from Wiz and Boomstick that actually tie into their characters. Wiz’s mad scientist side definitely shone through a few times in this.

Plus if you’re a fan of these series, you’re going to love all the little references sprinkled throughout. This one went ham with them. Whether that’s a good thing or bad thing I’ll leave up to you. I know I can get annoyed when something is just constant references and nothing else. coughWish*cough* But in this case it works. It’s not like they’re telling a story, it’s making two characters fight. It’s ok to focus on the fan service.

So I thought the analyses were good. Not great, but good. For this kind of fight, they went in the best direction I think. It was at least funny which helps set the tone for the fight. Speaking of.

Fight Animation

You know this fight takes me back. Not because of any strong nostalgia for both series, but because it reminded me of early 3D fights of Death Battle. It has a similar level of jank and lack of polish that those had. Something that you can really see in the Gru model which can look really rough in spots.

Suffice to say this isn’t up to the same quality as something like Cell vs Metal Sonic, but if I’m being honest it kind of gives it a unique charm. Plus, it’s not like the animation is bad. It’s not bad at all, it’s very expressive and has a lot of energy to it. it definitely looks like it was made on a budget, but for what they had to work with I think it turned out ok.

I cannot, repeat, CANNOT stress that last part enough. One of the main criticisms levied at the fight is they didn’t show off that much of their arsenals. Which is a fair criticism to make. We didn’t really see any of Megamind’s mech suits or that much of Gru’s arsenal. In fact Gru didn’t do that much which is a criticism I do fully align with, he could have done more.

BUT, there is a reason why they didn’t show off that much. They didn’t have access to them. There aren’t that many high-quality models available for the Despicable Me or Megamind franchises to pull from. The videogames certainly don’t give them much, and they can’t exactly use the movies because that be way too much work. They had to do everything from scratch, and I’m sorry but if they wanted to include more, it was going to cost more.

I don’t think they had the budget to show as much as they wanted. You could argue they should have gone 2D then, but these are characters from CG animated movies. It wouldn’t be right if it wasn’t a 3D fight. So it was kind of a damned if you do, fucked if you didn’t kind of situation. There was no easy way to do this episode.

Not to say there aren’t clear flaws. As I said, Gru doesn’t do a whole lot, Ol’ Chum being stuck as the man in the chair made him feel like a non-entity for most of it, it felt really short despite it being of average length, and while the scene where Ol’ Chum was watching the fight play out was a different way of showing the fight I would have preferred just seeing them play out sans the framing.

I get why people might be disappointed in this. Mind you I think that’s because people had inflated expectations. It feels like people got so worked up on fight potential they forgot to be pragmatic about how it could be done. I get that. When you have a matchup with this much of a legacy that people have been discussing for years you’re going to have people wanting more out of it, it’s inevitable really. But I also think having such expectations can make you more critical of something. It becomes a situation where you criticise something for what it isn’t, not what it is.

So I can understand the disappointed reactions to an extent, but this fight is too much fun for me to hate. I’m sorry but I just thought it was funny. It captured both characters personalities really well. It’s not perfect, but it’s close enough, and considering a lot of Megamind’s personality comes from Will Ferrel’s performance it was always going to be difficult for them to really nail it down.

The banter between the two was pretty damn funny. I like how they’re both shown to be equally flamboyant, but Megamind is more theatrical while Gru is a bit more, well cringe but he’s clearly having fun so he gets away with it. I mean the dude literally starts a dance party in the middle of the fight; he’s just vibing during this whole thing.

Of course, the Minions are a big part of the fight. They do more than Gru does, the Mega Minions all play a big part, and I like how they’re shown to be helpful and yet still a little incompetent. Just like how they are in the movies. The scenes where they all charge at Megamind was a really cool shot too. Even the Minions looked a little dead inside. Again, the fight looks rough in places.

That’s not the only highlight though. Gru blocking the death laser with the Mega Minions own was a power move, and we got the famous “Presentation!” bit from Megamind which was really well done considering the low budget. Now that I think about it, it might have eaten up most of the budget. I’d say they should have cut it, but then it would just feel empty. See what I mean when I say there wasn’t an easy way to do this one.

I just don’t get the hate this is getting from places like Reddit. I get being disappointed in certain things not being there, but people are acting like they put no effort into it and I just have to ask, were we watching the same fight?

To be fair, I can see the tone not vibing with people. This is a comedy battle at the end of the day and those don’t vibe with some people. But as a comedy battle, I thought it was good. The banter was great and it had some legit laughs. The death being caused by an accident was funny as hell and also fitting for the characters too.

The lower budget definitely makes it look rough in places, and I think the voice acting is only ok. I think Kestin Howard and Corey Wilder did a good job in their roles, it’s just that these are two characters with very distinctive vocal performances that aren’t the easiest to imitate. It’s like when Po is voiced by anyone other than Jack Black. Even if they’re good, you can tell it’s not him and it can be distracting.

Also, all the Minions were voiced by the animator Luis Cruz. He actually gave the best performance in this because he sounded exactly like the Minions from the movie. And just to be complete, I thought Colin Nelson did good as Minion even if he didn’t have much to do.

So the technicals are a mixed bag, but the fight itself is still a lot of fun. It does feel like they tried to capture the spirit and tone of both series. It certainly could have had more, but it still felt like a Gru vs Megamind fight. Which is arguably more important. But how was the verdict.

Result

So Gru was the ultimate victor, but it was close. Which was something I was expecting given what I heard about the debate. The categories were Arsenal, Minions and Skill. Arsenal was tied because while Megamind had more versatility, Gru had more powerful stuff and had his own similar weapons to match. Minions was tied for pretty much the same reasoning. Gru’s was stronger, but Megamind had more and was more well organised.

So it all came down to Skill which went to Gru since Megamind is shown to be a lot more incompetent. I can buy this reasoning. It could have been explained a bit better. Like they could have shown that Megamind works better at long term plans which wouldn’t work in a Death Battle scenario. But using the Schafrillas meme works just as well I guess.

That’s perhaps the funniest part. For the entire waiting period people were arguing the Megamind sequels would give him the win, and they wound up being why he lost. Those sequels were so bad they destroyed his chances of winning this. You couldn’t make this shit up if you tried.

Now there is the typical accusations of downplaying both characters, but I honestly don’t care. At this point I only care if the debate is accurately shown and/or it’s internally consistent. In this case it is. The debate is close and they made it appear close, and I can’t see any internal flaws so it’s perfectly fine.

I’m sorry if you wanted me to get stuck in and rip it apart but I think it’s fine. Maybe if I was more invested in this I’d be mad but I’m not. It’s fucking Gru vs Megamind, it’s a battle between two kids movies. I’m not going to take this that seriously.

Conclusion

Is Gru vs Megamind a top shelf episode? Not really. It has very clear flaws that hold it back from the lack of their arsenals shown off in the fight, to the fight itself looking rough in places. Add on the analyses not going too in depth and I can see why it has gained a bit of a negative reaction on places like Reddit. Not that I or anyone else should care what Reddit thinks.

But the episode is fun. It’s funny, has some cool moments, and it felt like it respected both franchises. It’s a perfectly good episode and that’s all I needed it to be. I wasn’t going in expecting an epic army match, or a cosmic level duel between gods, I went in expecting a goofy fight between two cartoon characters, and that’s exactly what I got.

As for next time, ok can we admit that anime fights have overtaken Marvel vs DC in overused matchups now. Because this season has been 90% anime now. It’s a little bit much don’t you think. But Yuji vs Denji is cool I guess, hope we get a videogame fight after though because sweet Jesus I need something new.

Score: 7/10