Steve Carrell has done it all: he's been a forty-year-old virgin, a mouse sculptor, Noah, a Who, and often a regular guy. But now he voices the animated Gru, a supervillain intent on stealing the moon who "adopts" three orphans as part of his plan to vanquish his nemesis, Vector (Jason Segal) and the younger villain's father, Mr. Perkins (Will Arnett), the president of the Bank of Evil. And did I mention his little yellow Minions?

Despicable Me is hilarious, exciting, and poignant. We're shown how a supervillain comes to be (and all of the less attentive, absentee parents watching shudder), and what it might look like if that supervillain received some love. Margo, Edith, and Agnes are the three orphans in question, and their unconditional love proves to be a force for good in a world that appears all bad at the beginning. While Gru and Vector see only domination and pain-inducing evil (think Spy vs. Spy kind of evil), the girls only want to belong and be wanted.

And halfway through the movie, we realize that is all that Gru really wants, too.

I don't want to understate how funny this movie is. I found myself periodically laughing out loud (and I am not a "laugher"). I thought that the comic genius of Carell, Arnett, Segal, Kristen Wiig, and Russell Brand was genius in itself, and Carrell's Slavic accent is spot-on (sometimes, I even forgot it was him). But the animation is off-the-hook, too, and that's saying something. Considering that the film came in third this year behind Toy Story 3 and Shrek 4ever After, which had built-in audiences who wanted to see the next installment, Despicable Me was quite a success.

Interested audiences will appreciate that Gru undergoes a night-and-day, come-to-Jesus kind of transformation thanks to the three little girls. It's quite a testament to the storytelling, and the truth exists there that just a little bit of good can go along way. Watching this during the Christmas season, I couldn't miss the echo of "the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it" from John: these girls stay steadfast in their belief in themselves, in family, and in Gru even, to the point where he has to believe and change, too.

Animated or not, this is one of my favorite films of 2010!