YMMV / Despicable Me

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Did Mr. Perkins set Vector up to steal the moon instead of Gru to help his son remain the most successful villain, just to spite Gru, or to help cover the loss of money loaned to Gru, considering how he mentions how "lucrative" stealing the moon would be, not to mention him seeming legitimately unconvinced that Gru could pull off the heist?
  • Is Gru's mom just a mean, apathetic Abusive Parent who likes to make her son miserable? Or is she a frosty and distant parent who's actually rightfully exasperated with him for choosing a villain career, thinking he could do much better with his life?
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: After Gru steals the moon, a werewolf turns back to normal. This is the only supernatural element in any of the three films and doesn't really fit in other than being Played for Laughs.
• Character Perception Evolution: When the movie first came out, the Minions were praised for being legitimately funny Plucky Comic Relief characters whose adorableness added a lot of charm to it, and they were appreciated for being hilarious while not stealing the spotlight from Gru and the girls. But when their presence in advertising and pop culture grew so big to the point one could find them anywhere, many started to get tired of them, not helped by their appearances in the sequels being seen as less funny and more annoying than in the original. By the time their own movie came out (which virtually doubled their presence in advertising and pop culture), many already had more than enough of them.
• Crack Pairing: An odd case with Margo and Vector, with Margo of course being a child whom Vector is at least 10 years older than, not to mention the fact he kidnapped her and her sisters and planned to keep them for who knows what.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Gru's Imagine Spot when he gets the idea to leave the girls at Super Silly Fun Land (i.e. pulling a lever that sends them going up a roller coaster track with a large arrow reading "GOODBYE").
• Fan Nickname: Doofenshmirtz: The Movie, with all the similarities the character of Gru has. The critic's nickname Wile E. Coyote Vs. Wile E. Coyote also counts.
• First Installment Wins:
  • While the sequels have done better financially, many tend to view the first film as the only installment in the franchise that is truly good, due to the relationship and development between Gru and his daughters being well done, an entertaining villain in the form of Vector and Gru himself being entertaining. Even the Minions, who would become heavily contested in later films, are the most well-liked here, since they act as side comic relief characters who don't overstay their welcome and take the spotlight away from the main characters like they have been accused of doing in later films.
  • Those who dislike Illumination's later output will often refer to this film as being their only good film quality-wise (with the exceptions of Sing 1 and 2 as well as The Super Mario Bros. Movie), with their reasoning being that it is the only one where they genuinely tried to make a good film first and foremost, as opposed to their later films, which have been accused of sacrificing quality in favor of trying to make a quick buck from kids and their parents.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Vector's "magnitude and direction" line makes a lot more sense (and is funnier) for anyone that's taken physics.
  • Even many of the adults in the first movie's audience didn't get the joke with "The Bank of Evil — Formerly Lehman Brothers," a reference to the banking firm whose bankruptcy is widely credited with instigating the Great Recession.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • The minion's cheering for Gru in their first appearance is a lot nicer after seeing their struggles to finding a boss and meeting Gru as a child. Even better, they break their long-infamous tradition of accidentally killing their chosen master and instead successfully save them!
  • In the first film, Kristen Wiig voices the cruel Miss Hannigan expy Miss Hattie, who despises the girls and does everything she can to make their lives with her miserable. As the character doesn't appear in any of the sequels, Wiig was recast as Lucy Wilde, who loves the girls just as much as Gru does.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • There have been some comparisons between this and Megamind; showing a Villain Protagonist, his loyal minion named Minion, and then finding a love interest (which didn't happen to Gru until the sequel). Then in 2016, Universal, owner of Illumination and Despicable Me, acquired rights to DreamWorks Animation—the studio that made Megamind. Better yet, Megamind himself would later voice the villain in the fourth instalment.
  • Gru's on-the-spot excuse to the girls for having a high-tech Elaborate Underground Base? He's a spy. In the sequel, he ends up exactly that.
  • Vector playing on a Wii-like console now seems hilarious after Nintendo and Illumination teamed up to make the The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
• Ho Yay: The way Vector introduces himself to Gru is...either very socially awkward, a bad attempt at flirting or both.
• Jerkass Woobie: Gru himself qualifies as this. Sure, he's a mean guy, but look at all his flashbacks to him as a kid with his mom dismissing his claims that he'll go to the moon (and not being encouraging overall to begin with) and the utterly crushed looks on his little face. Not to mention his reaction to his adopted girls being taken away to keep them from being a distraction to him. The sequel also revealed that Gru was a social outcast in school. The other kids completely avoided him and feared that if he touches them, they will get "Gruties." Seeing his heartbroken expression from this is just agonizing.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Although Vector and Mr. Perkins are the film's actual main antagonists, Vector's goofy personality and wacky antics make him impossible to hate, while Mr. Perkins' actions against Gru have some genuine reason behind them and he's further humanised by his sincere love for his son. In stark contrast, Miss Hattie and the unnamed carnival worker who taunts Agnes are far more repugnant and reviled, due to their more realistic cruelty, their complete lack of any redeeming qualities, and in Hattie's case, being a Karma Houdini.
• Love to Hate:
  • Vector manages to be one of the amusing factors of the film, thanks to both his Laughably Evil nature and his Butt-Monkey tendencies.
  • Miss Hattie is by far the most mean-spirited character in the film, treating the girls like crap and getting away with it. Nevertheless, she stands out for her nonchalant attitude (particularly in her interactions with Gru) and the novelty of Kristen Wiig Playing Against Type.
• Memetic Badass: Gru quickly became one, mostly due to his most impressive Papa Bear moment in the first film where he almost effortlessly breaks into Vector's fortress (which he previously couldn't infiltrate for the life of him) to rescue the girls, during which he threatens Vector, cleanly dodges homing missiles and punches a shark in the face. That in turn spawned this◊ copypasta that only helped things along.
• Memetic Mutation: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Moral Event Horizon: Surprisingly for a kids' movie, two.
  • Miss Hattie crosses it when she introduces the "box of shame".
  • Just so we don't feel too sorry for nerdy and seemingly wimpy villain Vector when he gets trapped on the Moon, he tries to keep Gru from rescuing Margo from the about-to-explode spaceship.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Mr. Perkins has less than ten minutes of screen time in the whole movie, but he makes a hell of an impression. Some fans were even disappointed he never appeared in any of the sequels.
  • The obnoxious carnival barker whose game Gru obliterates.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: The Despicable Me games for the Nintendo DS and Wii are fun puzzle games starring Gru's minions.
• Once Original, Now Common: The Minions were lauded as the movie's funniest characters and became the series' Ensemble Dark Horse group. This, of course, wound up leading to other companies wanting a piece of the pie and coming up with their own Minion-like characters themselves. (i.e. McDonald's Happy Meal creatures, the elves in Dreamworks' Rise of the Guardians, and the lemmings in Norm of the North, etc.) The verbally-impaired-friends/helpers-of-the-protagonist trope has seen so much use that anyone who went back to watch the movie that broke it into the mainstream will likely fail to see the appeal of the quirky Minions.
• Retroactive Recognition: The carnival barker is voiced by Jack McBrayer, who would later go on to voice Fix-It Felix Jr.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Justin, the rambunctious kid from the movie's opening, is a decent match for Edith, given their love for destruction and mischief. However, they don't interact at all, Justin is never seen again after the opening, and they presumably live in different countries.
• Signature Scene: Gru destroying the jerkass carnival barker's stand with his plasma gun to get Agnes the stuffed unicorn. "Knocked ooooooooo-ver!!"
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The karaoke song about "Lola Banana" sung by one of the minions in the toy store sounds awfully familiar.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Miss Hattie never appears again after Nefario calls her to take the girls away. She suffers no consequences for how she treats the children in her care, and doesn't even serve as an obstacle to Gru getting the girls back in the ending.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The revelation that Vector is Mr. Perkins' son doesn't really amount to anything aside from Vector finding out that Gru stole back the shrink ray. This is made even more jarring by the fact that Perkins does not appear any later in the movie. Or even in any of the sequels, either, where it would have made perfect sense for him to return with a larger role.
  • Most "villain becomes a hero" stories have a hero to rise up against them. Wreck-It Ralph had Fix-it Felix, and Megamind had Metro Man. This movie doesn't appear to have any hero to rise up against Gru. Law enforcement is mostly lacking in this universe, and the Anti-Villain League wasn't introduced until the sequel after Gru has already given up villainy entirely.
  • After Gru rescues the girls from Vector, they're immediately shown living with him again. Barring the possibility that Miss Hattie was simply too pissed off at Gru to bother with any formalities, the legal proceedings that would have realistically had to happen for Gru to regain custody of the girls is completely skipped over.
• The Woobie:
  • Gru has his moments of this, especially with his mommy issues.
  • The girls, when they're in the orphanage.
  • The nameless boy whose ice cream is on the ground and whose balloon is popped.
  • Agnes when her first unicorn toy gets destroyed.