Nov 13 2008Popular Actor/Comedians Providing Voices to CGI Family Comedy

Sorry, trained voice actors, an all-celebrity roster led by Steve Carell is once again dominating the cast of a new animated film called Despicable Me:

Illumination Entertainment topper Chris Meledandri has kicked off his Universal Pictures-based family film unit with "Despicable Me," a 3-D CG-animated film that has Steve Carell voicing the title character.

Jason Segel, Kristen Wiig, Will Arnett, Danny McBride, Russell Brand, Jemaine Clement ("Flight of the Conchords"), Jack McBrayer ("30 Rock") and Julie Andrews are providing the other lead voices. The film will be released in 2010.

Carell's title character is a deplorable man known as Groo who masterminds the mother of all heists when he plots to steal the moon. Egged on by an evil mother (Andrews), Groo finds one obstacle in his way: a trio of orphan girls who temporarily come under his care and won't leave.

I'm normally pretty skeptical about any computer-animated family comedy that isn't a Pixar, but I'll give this a pass for now because:

- This is a really good cast of mostly genuinely funny people, not Angelina Jolies.

- It isn't a sequel.

- I like the plan of stealing the moon. It's like Chairface Chippendale's plan to carve his name in the moon, but even more grandiose. How do you steal the moon? I'm willing to find out for now.

But so help me, first mention of anything equivalent to liking to "move it" and I'm done.

Steve Carell to voice 'Despicable' [Variety]