Is Gru VS Megamind a Cinematic Disaster?

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Oh boy, everyone. It's Grew versus Megamind time. One of my most anticipated episodes of the Kickstarter matchups and the first really unique episode of this year. We have Western Media back for the first time since Blade versus Buffy like half a year ago and the rare animated movie episode, too. I like both of their first movies.

[00:00:19]I have watched both of their follow-ons and I like both characters a decent amount. I was definitely hyped and I think the episode's all right. Yeah, it's fairly good. Let's get into it, though. The analysis, I don't think, is doing anything for me here. Starting with Gru, I think the opening is fine.

[00:00:37]They set him up, they introduce him, and they start going into his gadgets. I don't mind this opening. It sets him up and goes over some of what he brings to the table. There's an amusing enough aside about the fart gun being referred to as just fantastic entertainment for 2-year-olds. They don't linger too long on it. They then go into the minions, including choosing ones specifically to reference team members, you know, such as Billy Ring Master, Lald Windwood, John Storyboard, some idiot named Liam I've never heard of and don't know, and Chad James. They then go fully into the minions, giving essentially a full backstory rundown for them before eventually coming back to Gru and his story. And from there on, they just kind of summarize it. Yeah, oddly enough, Gru's analysis isn't really an analysis.

[00:01:15]It's a completely bar of any versus stuff synopsis. They briefly go over a handful of his gadgets. They go into his later vehicles. They bring up one speed feat, one string feat, calc feet, and that's it. In fact, there's a more important feat at the end of the episode that's not even mentioned here. This is not an analysis of Gru. It's a summary of his first movie with some elements from the Minions. It's very simple and a little underwhelming. It fails to really do anything but generally go over the basic beats of the first Despicable Me.

[00:01:43]And even then, it does so with some really wonky pacing, going over Gru's backstory, then having a long pause for the minions who get their whole entire segment, then going back to Gru for a moment, back to the minions again, and then it concludes Gru's story after that. If I had not seen Despicable Me, I'd probably have like minimal to even say. It doesn't give you any information with which to predict who is going to win, which I think is a big part of what a versus analysis should accomplish, and doesn't really go in depth into the details with Gru because, well, I mean, that's not the point of a versus analysis. It ends up being just a basic description of his story that fails at either really end. And Megamind's analysis, I think, is better, but only in the sense that it doesn't have the same pacing issues. It has the same solid opening, though it's a little awkward that it opens on the note of, "What if Megamind won?" And then it still goes, "Oh, avert your eyes, children." When he actually wins at that point, I I don't know why those are two separate things that needed to be here.

[00:02:35]I guess I do think the whole thing comes across better. They go over Megamind's equipment as it's relevant. Minion and the Brainbots feel less like a complete aside from the main core subject matter.

[00:02:44]And oddly enough, I feel like the music works better here. I rarely notice the music in these analyses. They tend to be in one ear out the other generic tracks that just really don't do anything for me. But the track they use when describing Megamind's initial turn to goodness and his conflict with Titan actually did kind of stick and felt fitting for the situation. I generally like how this analysis is paced better.

[00:03:03]Though again, they barely have any like versus analysis in here. There's no verses. And to repeat myself from the past, I think these analyses need to have a balance of verses and story so that it feels neither like a basic synopsis nor a versus stat sheet. You don't want one or the other because one essentially is just a really basic summation of what's going on with no information for the viewer to carry to the future. And the other is a really boring analysis that fails to convey an understanding of the characters. This doesn't have the balance of that middle ground. This is a synopsis. Making a prediction on who will win based on this analysis no matter how closely you pay attention will be Gu has some explosive tech. He can dodge missiles and punch sharks. Minions are indestructible and they one of them has a 5% the speed of light I beam. Megamind can dodge electricity and survive explosions and has a bunch of weird settings on the D gun. And minion is also smart. That's it. That's all you've got. Thankfully, I personally think the fight makes up for this a bit. I think you have to get a few things out of the way though. Yes, this grew model is butt ugly. It looks really bad. This, I think, was inevitable, though. From what I know, there just weren't the available resources to make this fight look visually great. The animation can be a bit stiff and awkward, and notably, it doesn't look fantastic just at a standstill. Comparing it only to other death battles, the lighting and environment and effects do not stack up to what we have today. They feel more in line with season 2. This is all notable for sure, but I don't want to focus on it cuz this episode really comes across as a victim of the budget. There were very few models in this episode that existed prior. Vehicles and weapons had to be custommade and there are a lot of them in this fight. Look at the scale of the battle with the sheer number of brain bots, the minions, all the gadgets and such for voice actors. This was really ambitious and I think a lot of leeway should be given for that. If this was under the rooster teeth budget, maybe we'd be feeling a bit different here and I'd be a little more critical, but we're not that well off right now.

[00:04:57]The show is independent and we have to take that into consideration. But to give it its flowers, the fight story, I think, is solid. Goo and Megamind assume the other is the villain, and they're too used to acting like villains, so neither realizes what's going on, except for Megamind at the very end. There are a lot of fun little touches that help with this. For instance, Megamind's first line is, "Here, I thought it was the hero that chases the bad guys." The way he says it, fittingly for the character, is just emphasized wrong. He doesn't say what he really means, which is, "Here, I thought I, the hero, was supposed to be chasing you, the bad guy." His inflection and the way he words it comes across as him saying here I thought it was supposed to be a hero chasing me. Essentially the difference is that he intended to say that he thinks Grrew is the bad guy chasing him who was the good guy but he says it as if he thinks he's a bad guy saying he thought he'd be chased by heroes and not by another bad guy. Megamind calls Groud as a super villain and Grrew being Grrew doesn't even try to correct him especially when he then goes on about presentation and while trying to show off he makes himself come across as if he's still just a villain. I think that all works and he gets across the point well. The miscommunication between them is very in character. I'd say the dialogue in general pretty much helps.

[00:06:02]Gru is very dry and deadp doesn't really play into Megamind much, while Megamind is trying to have fun, but he doesn't really he can't really play off of Gru very well. So, ironically, them not being able to play off each other makes them play off each other really well from an outsider perspective and makes them really fun to watch together. The whole fight gradually goes from the sky to the ground, which is fun. And the opening, I think, works, too. Group fires his missiles. They hilariously don't have enough juice to keep going, but that ends up helping cuz they fall back onto Megamind. They take out each other's vehicles. They land. That That's cool. The building gag is amusing, I suppose. Though, I can't help but notice that Megamind lands on a building that isn't there in the first shot. I don't think it's supposed to be this part of the building grew on because that's what I think this here behind Grew is. It is in service of a really cool silhouetted shot, which I think is awesome, but it is something I noticed. Kind of like the white line horizontally down the middle of Megamind's eyes in some shots. So, what's up with that? I really like the whole building interaction, though. I can't beuse the presentation reference given the context of who Megamind is fighting. And it's not this episode's fault that Zatana stole his thunder a few years back. I like how Megamind is here talking about what Gru's doing and being happy that he has a super villain to fight. And the [ __ ] ass Sonic popsicle is a fun reference that's not too intrusive. The actual presentation shot is really nice, and I'm glad they didn't directly recreate the scene specifics point for point. The shot of the two going to fight is great, and I think the actual music shift when the minions start dropping beats is great, too. The bouncy techno part of our track with this episode, Despicable Minds, really shines here. It sounds like what you'd expect from movies like Despicable Me and Megamind, and we get one of our only shots of Minion himself in it. I like how it's animated. Shame he doesn't show up again, though. It does go on a bit long, and it does feel like it didn't need to go quite this far. One of my favorite shots that probably goes underappreciated is Megamind walking out of the brain bots. Like, look at all of them. This looks really good. Has a great sense of scale and the amount of brain bots present. And I got to shout out at this point the facial animations, too. While the actual character motions can look a bit awkward, they nailed the facial motion, which I do think is a very important thing that brings the episode to life. Megamind especially is really full of expressive character. The bit with the mega minions is fun. It's nice to see them included, but not in a role too prominent that they steal the spotlight. And you know, the actual shot like from ground showing the sheer scale of the brain bot construction. That's really neat. The focus of this episode remains primarily on Gru the whole fight. So it still feels like Gru versus Megamind and not Minions versus Megamind which I think is good. I think that's great. It's I mean it's even a little better than say even Bowser versus Eggman where if we're being honest it did kind of feel like Bowser versus Battle Sonic. There is a pace breaking moment afterwards where Minion does the whole bit with Megamind over the Death Ray which I think just it just it doesn't keep the pace up and I think it's even more pace breaking than Minion's previous appearance. I think it would have been funnier and kept the pace up if he just said, "Uh, it was there for the last few minutes, sir."

[00:08:46]And Megamind just was like, "Why didn't you tell me?" It also would have made Gru look less stupid for just standing there. Though, I do like him bringing up the laser minion to fire back at the death ray. It's such a brief moment that's really easy to miss, but it is funny once you notice it. Then there's the death. Also, I [ __ ] love that this guy is still in Angry Bird slingingshot mode, by the way. That's [ __ ] great. Now, personally, I think the death is really amusing. Megamind finally realizes there's been a big misunderstanding and stops paying any attention for a moment to try and clear things up. He then gets unceremoniously blasted into a skeleton and dies. This is of course a Metro Man reference, which I'll accept. But the funniest part is the surprise from everyone. The minions are shocked. Grrew is confused.

[00:09:27]His big moment of triumph goes up in smoke in the face of accidental murder.

[00:09:31]I can't tell if it's actually on disintegrate in the preceding shot, but my personal belief is that this minion here set it to disintegrate unintentionally when he gave it to Gru, but Grrew assumed it was still on dehydration mode because, well, he doesn't really know that it has multiple modes, now does he? And the last thing Megamind shouted was dehydration gun.

[00:09:49]So, he probably assumed cuz he himself survived it, it would just turn Megamind into a block. I am a little myiffed about the ending being built around Gru screaming dehydration gun. Okay, but it's not the first or last time this thing will be referenced in the episode, let me tell you. I [ __ ] love that debunk verdict is on this gun, though.

[00:10:07]And I love Megamind's big fat skeleton head. I find skeletons inherently hilarious, and I think this was amusing.

[00:10:14]I do get some of the issues people have, like how Megamind stops fighting at this point, which I'm fine with, but I can see it being annoying to some, especially for people who don't know Megamind well enough to know how in character it is. It kind of comes across as if he's just dumb. But my biggest issue with this moment is that there's no shot between this minion vomiting and Grrew checked into gun to have minion react to Megamind's death with shock.

[00:10:35]Yeah, I think the episode's fight is fine. Could it have been better? It's hard to say because the episode had plenty of trouble just being as competent as it is. Yeah, we could have had the mech be involved, but that's a whole new massive model with all little bits to it that has to be made and rigged. We could have gone to fist fighting with Megamind super suit, but that's yet another new model to make in Rig and also doesn't really represent how they'd fight super well. Look at the amount of custom work already in this fight. I think the focus being on their technology and them countering one another was the way to do it. And mixed with some really good shots here and there and amusing moments. I think the fight is solid. Not perfect, but probably as good as it could have been given the situation. Voice acting is fairly solid. I should note too though.

[00:11:16]Gru and Megamind start off sounding weird. In fact, I kind of felt like in his first line, Gru sounded like he was imitating himself, but they do get better with time. The minions are also all fine. So, like, I do think the fight's okay. I understand people who think that it's middling. I can get that. Don't really know where people are coming from saying it's like one of the worst of all time, but like, you know, it's it's solid. Then there's the conclusion, which to put it in two words, [ __ ] sucks. This is just a really badly written conclusion. I'm not even going to sugarcoat it. Let's start.

[00:11:44]The Arsenal section begins with versatility, which I think is fair. Then it goes into the scale of their weapons, which would be fine, except they compare Megamind's death ray in its destructive capacity to Gru's shrink ray, shrinking the moon. These are not reasonable comparisons. The area of effect of one of Gru's weapons that he did not build and does not have destructive force is compared to the explosive power of Megamind's ultimate death ray. Why is this comparison here? Is supposed to be because like is it because like if they try to take out each other's armies, Gru has bigger area of effect? Well, no he doesn't because the shrink ray will hit one thing and shrink that one thing. It doesn't spread into a massive moonsized area. It just hit the moon and that spread around the moon to shrink it cuz the moon is one thing. Meanwhile, if Megamind use the death ray on the minions, I mean, it wouldn't work cuz they'd survive it, but it would at least hit them all. I don't know what's going on there. They then bring up a durability feat for Gru that I do not believe was mentioned outside of this on the sidebar here during Gru's analysis and suddenly calc level. Then they say the weapon they've repeatedly called a mountain buster is only multi- city block, which I know why the numbers ended up that way. But come on guys, you know what you're doing wording it the way you did. Then they say with nothing to back it up, the Megamind super suit could take hits like Grrew can, but Megamind himself can't. And yet, despite the suit being able to take whatever Gru is dishing out, they say Arsenals is a draw because Grrew could blow up Megamind with one shot and Megamind could use his D gun to one-shot Gru, which is a very strange way of arguing it, especially when they give Megamind a suit that they imply could just survive Gru's destructive force. You can make the same argument for Gru versus Iron Man having equal arsenal. Iron Man has more versatility. However, Grrew's weapons have a really high destructive force, and they would be able to easily kill Iron Man if he wasn't in his suit.

[00:13:31]Iron Man's suit could survive what Grrew can dish out, but not Iron Man himself.

[00:13:36]Airgo, both could easily blow each other up, and air go, it's a draw. They say it will come down to speed, and then they immediately move on to minions instead.

[00:13:44]In this segment, they still draw. The logic being that Gru's army of 10,000 super genius indestructible minions that can hack Megamind's technology along with the five mega minions that can destroy Megamind's equipment extremely easily are tied against Megamind's army of 100,000 near useless brainbots and Minion who is kind of like a second Megamind. Really strange to say that they're equal cuz they make a pretty strong argument for the army of 10,000 indestructible dudes to take on the army of 100,000 dudes they can hack into easily. Plus the five even more indestructible dudes with a death laser against Megamind but with less stuff.

[00:14:16]Then they go into skill. The last category. Hold on. Shouldn't the last one be speed when that's what they said was the deciding factor? You'd [ __ ] think, wouldn't you? Yeah. So, this segment is one that [ __ ] broke me.

[00:14:29]They talk about their successes and how grews are better. Fine. I feel that's more experience or general competency than skill. They reference the shoot them with the dehydration gun bit.

[00:14:40][ __ ] again great. And doing so use a moment notable and infamous for Megamind being out of character and how stupid he is as an argument for his own incompetence. Except not even because the corner box notes that this is a negligible thing under death battle rules. So Whizz's quote here only exists to reference the meme cuz you get it.

[00:15:00]Cuz you [ __ ] get it cuz shoot them with a dehydration gun is a popular meme.

[00:15:05]And then we get the final [ __ ] bit.

[00:15:09]Speed as the determining factor in the skill category. I don't I don't I I'm going to have a drink.

[00:15:19]I don't How? Who the [ __ ] Oh, and to top it all off, they have two feats of which one is visually much faster.

[00:15:26]Except they go into how Grrew dodging missiles is 20 times faster than Megamind dodging electricity. Not only are these reactionary feats not immediately grounds to base who is faster at the draw or whose weaponry is faster, they also do not go into how they actually got these speeds. Except that this here, laser precision calc. I see you laser precision. I don't believe the shoe fits cuz this is not a laser.

[00:15:49]This is a missile. How precise are you?

[00:15:52]SHOULDN'T YOU BE MISSILE PRECISION?

[00:15:55]ANYWAY, this is not immediately clear on what's going on. And the clarification here of electricity not lightning is fine except that electricity does not have a set speed at all times. And this would seem to contradict a whole host of other lightning dodging feats in the show's history. In even in cases like say Mob versus Tatsumaki where one is visually more impressive and involves lightning, they went out of their way to clarify. Yeah, by the way, the numbers as we calculate do come out in Tatsumaki's favor. This thing of just barely mentioning is sloppy. It's sloppy. It makes it feel like they really wanted to avoid the versus analysis in this episode, which is strange cuz this is death battle. It's not general debate, but with like very loosey goosey rules battle. It's death battle. The versus stuff is inherently baked into it. If you don't want to make a versus episode, don't do it. All this comes down to what I consider to be a really poorly explained conclusion for what was and I still think is one of the most debatable episodes we've had in a long time by a landslide. The most debatable episode of the year so far in my mind. And it's a shame because I think the analyses are both really underwhelming. The conclusion is really bad. And then the fight I think's all right. I think it's solid. I think it's good. And obviously that's the most important thing to most people, the fight. and how they actually do the crossover bit. And I think it nails most of what I like in a death battle fight.

[00:17:26]It has decent banter. It has fun story to tell. It has a kind of amusing death.

[00:17:33]It has little bits in there that I think are good. Is it an oldtimer? Is it great? Is it fantastic? Like I wanted it to be considering it was like my third most hyped for Kickstarter matchup behind Ruby Maka and Ashu Yugi. Um, no.

[00:17:49]No, it definitely didn't live up to those and I do not think it really managed to hit me in the same kind of like really woo hype way. Uh, it was definitely underwhelming, but it's a case where I still think it's solid.

[00:18:04]It's underwhelming because I had high expectations, not because it lacked enough wellm. It is a fine episode overall. I think it's solid. The animators did as best as they could. The music's good. The writing for the fight is solid. The death's funny. The characters are well enough handled. The references are moderately less intrusive than usual. But I just do not know.

[00:18:31]Still, even now after having watched it multiple times and written this review, I am still in a situ. I failed. This was supposed to be where I'm I've solidified how I feel about the episode cuz I look back and I realize that's why I feel XY Z. No, right now I'm sitting here.

[00:18:45]something and I still don't really have a solid idea over how I feel about the episode. All I know is that I don't give it the same vitriol that I've seen a lot of people give it. Uh which is funny cuz I am the guy that people like to call a death battle hater who just nitpicks on things. Um so that's quite amusing to me. But I I don't know. I don't know. I think this I think it's a solid episode.

[00:19:10]I get where some people are coming from.

[00:19:13]Uh, but if it was just a matter of it looks ugly, the Megamind Grew models aren't the best, especially Grew Budget, mate. It's just a budgetary thing. Um, yeah, I think that's all I got to say. As for the next time, okay, and that marks the ending of that review. Yeah, so interesting episode. A lot of people seem to really hate it.

[00:19:40]Uh, I definitely sit more on the fence.

[00:19:41]You know, I I can see the reasons people dislike it. Uh yeah, especially like a general approach. It's not going to work for everyone. It's one of those ones where like, yeah, it goes for comedy. Uh and as I mentioned before, when an episode plays into comedy, it's definitely less likely to have that overall appeal. It's more of a risk to go that route. Uh yeah, if you just don't enjoy the comedy, hey, that's fair. You know, that's completely fair.

[00:20:06]Uh so, tell me what you thought below, though. I'm sure people I'm sure you've not been shy about it. Uh yeah, thank you everyone for watching and for just hearing me out. Uh hopefully you came out of this a little more solidified in your opinion than I have.

[00:20:24]Um yeah, thank everyone for supporting me.

[00:20:28]Uh Patreon, you're lifesavers. Uh, if you want to support me, you can go to my Patreon where you'll get access to reviews like this early, as well as other things like my movie rankings and a couple other bits and bobs early. Uh, yeah. So, for now, uh, Ryan, you'll also I know I'm brain blanking. You can also access to my Discord. You can make me say dumb things such as what's about to happen right now. Laser Precision, I don't trust your name. I kind of liked being a baby. Do anti feats. Brain brain bots. Don't do they have a voice? They just kind of go.

[00:21:10]Oh, trans prime soundwave. Okay, I can do a pretty good impression of him.

[00:21:13]Check this out.

[00:21:19]Clearly, you don't own an air fryer.

[00:21:22]What is wrong with you? Why are you blue? I think I miss Marvel vs. DC >> Grrew won. Grrew's next. Grrew decide.

[00:21:32]Come back next time for more episodes of Epic Rap Battle of Gru. Remember to like, comment, and subscribe or else I get Stuart to dox you.

[00:21:47]All right, that's enough of that. Uh, hope everyone enjoyed that little decline into grew. Uh, yeah. See you next time everyone. Take care.

[00:21:59]>> I just stepped on a cornflake. Now I am officially a serial killer. I'm in shape. Unfortunately, that shape is West Germany.

[00:22:12]Back in my day, we didn't have anti-depressants.

[00:22:16]We just killed ourselves.