Despicable Me/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Acceptable Targets: Apparently the shrink ray was created in (and stolen from) North Korea.
  • Bad Boss: Gru is a subversion. He may test his inventions on his minions, but he remembers their names and treats them relatively well.
  • Crossing the Line Twice: Most of the visual gags qualify as a child-friendly version of the trope. A rocket landing on a playground? Not funny. A rocket landing on the spinner thing causing it to spin incredibly fast while the children cheer? Hilarious.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome/Ear Worm: Pharell Williams's "Despicable Me" is undiluted Cool and Win.
  • Ear Worm: BOOGIE PEOPLE!!!!
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: The minions. The studio saw this coming, and gave them featured roles in all the promotion.
    • Agnes. Look the comments of at any Despicable Me related video or article. Chances theres tons of people gushing about how cute she is.
  • Fan Nickname: Doofensmirtz: The Movie, with all the similarities the character of Gru has. The critic's nickname Wile E. Coyote Vs. Wile E. Coyote also counts.
  • Fridge Horror: The anti-gravity serum doesn't wear off. That minion's gonna keep floating forever.
  • Genius Bonus: Vector's "magnitude and direction" line makes a lot more sense (and is funnier) for anyone that's taken physics.
  • Ho Yay: Pops up frequently between the Minions.
  • Idiot Ball: To Vector for noticing that cookie he bit was metal and sparking and then NOT CARING about it.
    • Perhaps the Coconutties are just that good.
    • Or Miss Hattie's cookies generally fail most health standards.
  • Karma Houdini: Gru himself. He killed/threatened to kill a dog, stole the Jumbotron, caused a lot of property damage, froze random civillians, stole a top-secret shrink ray, actually stole the moon, and manipulated three girls into doing what he wants.
  • Like You Would Really Do It: It's obvious Edith survived the Iron Maiden.
  • Memetic Mutation: "HE'S SO FLUFFY I'M GONNA DIE!"
  • Moe: The girls.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Surprisingly for a kids' movie, two. Vector when he tries to keep Gru from rescuing Margo from the about-to-explode spaceship, and Miss Hattie when she introduces the "box of shame".
  • Tear Jerker: The whole scene in which the girls are taken back to the orphanage.
  • Trailer Joke Decay: Unfortunately a lot of it here.
  • The Problem with Licensed Games: Happily inverted. The Despicable Me games for the Nintendo DS and Wii are fun puzzle games starring Gru's minions.
  • Ugly Cute: The Minions.
  • WTH Casting: "Okay, so we have an elderly British professor who's hard of hearing, but serious about his job and does whatever he can to keep our villainous protagonist focused. Which star do we know that has the right voice for that? Peter O'Toole? Jeremy Irons?" "GET ME RUSSELL BRAND!!!"
    • This is not to say that Brand didn't do a good job in the movie (the troper personally believes it's his finest role to date), but...well, you have SEEN him, right? He isn't the first person you would probably think of to voice the Only Sane Man.
    • Well when you consider that his Mother is Julie Andrews, every ones favorite Nanny/Mom/Grandmother/Former Nun-Governess/ Did I miss anything?