Megamind 3D

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about Megamind 3D's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Megamind 3D completed by The Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 13 December 2010.

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines.

ACCM review

This review of the movie Megamind 3D contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

Megamind (voice of Will Ferrell) arrived on earth as a baby in a capsule at exactly the same time as Goody Two Shoes (Brad Pitt); both endowed with super powers. While Goody Two Shoes has a privileged upbringing, Megamind is brought up by convicts. He discovers that the only thing he is any good at is being bad, becomes a super-villain and ends up in prison. His adversary Goody Two Shoes grows up to become Metro Man, the superhero of MetroCity.

Megamind is finally released from jail on the day that Metro City has organised to dedicate a museum to Metro Man in his honour. Megamind, assisted by his fish companion, Minion (David Cross), manages to disrupt the celebrations by kidnapping popular television reporter Roxanne Ritchie (Tina Fey). When Metro Man comes to her rescue, Megamind succeeds in killing him, much to his surprise.

Megamind finds life rather boring without a good influence to oppose his badness. He therefore decides to create another superhero, Titan (Jonah Hill) who unfortunately decides he would rather be bad. Megamind now has a dilemma. He has to decide whether to oppose Titan by becoming a hero or to remain a super-villain.

Themes

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Superheroes; Good versus evil

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie including:

• Frequent fighting, punching, objects being thrown, explosions, etc.
• Roxanne is tied up, has a bag put over her head and is dangled over a pool with alligators in it.
• Megamind blows up the observatory, apparently killing Metro Man.
• Hal (Jonah Hill) beats himself up because Roxanne won't go out with him.
• Titan melts Megamind with his laser eyes.
• Titan ties Roxanne to the top of a tower which he then cuts down.

Material that may scare children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of eight, including the following:

• Babies sent away in capsules by their parents.
• Megamind's appearance - he is blue with a large head.
• A skeleton lands on Megamind.
• Megamind changes into various different characters.
• Minion's water bowl is broken and he appears to be dying - gasping for breath.
• Metro Man juggles babies and throws them back to their mothers.
• Megamind creates a huge mechanical body to fight in - it looks quite scary.
• At one point in the film, Megamind appears to be dead.

Aged eight to thirteen

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

There are no additional scenes likely to disturb this age group.

Over the age of thirteen

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Nothing of concern

Product placement

None of concern

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

• Roxanne is seen as the female who needs to be constantly rescued.
• All the characters (except Metro Man) are in love with Roxanne.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some sexual activity in this movie, including:

• Roxanne and Bernard (actually Megamind) kiss.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

• Drinking at dinner

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

• freakin'
• crap

The movie's message

Megamind 3D is an animated superhero comedy. There are some very funny lines in this movie but younger children are unlikely to understand the humour or the philosophical elements. The film is aimed at older children, adolescents and adults.

The main messages from this movie are that good cannot exist without evil and visa versa and that sometimes people are bad because of their circumstances.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

• Good can overcome evil
• People can make choices to be good or bad

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

• At one point Megamind says 'what's the point of being bad if there's no-one good to stop you?' - this could be quite a good issue to raise with children, as well as whether they should only be good because of the expectations of others or because of their own choice.
• Titan is given all the gifts to become a superhero but squanders them all for his own personal gain. Could Titan have made better choices?