With 2010’s animated adventure Megamind, we view the world of the superhero from the villain’s point of view. As seen in flashback, an alien infant gets sent to Earth as his home planet explodes – and he finds himself superceded by another baby jettisoned from a different dying world. The latter child grows up in the lap of luxury, while the former gets stuck with prison inmates.

Thus both go down different paths, as one baby grows up to be Metro Man (voiced by Brad Pitt), the virtuous super-protector of Metro City. As for the other one, he takes the villainous route: a blue dude with an enormous cranium, Megamind (Will Ferrell) fashions himself as Metro Man’s archenemy.

Megamind and Metro Man battle for years – with our blue friend inevitably on the losing end – until one day Megamind actually manages to kill his rival. Exultant at first, Megamind gradually becomes bored without his foe to battle, so he decides to create a new superhero named Titan (Jonah Hill) – or “Tighten”, as the dim-witted dude calls himself.

Megamind’s efforts go awry, however, as Tighten instead turns into a super-villain. This leads Megamind to tread a new path, as he now fashions himself as the hero who will stop Tighten – and win the heart of spunky reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey) as well.

Ever since DreamWorks Animation released their first movies in 1998, I’ve found the studio to produce competent but generally uninspired work. Oh, I’ve enjoyed a lot of their flicks, but these films never approached the heights enjoyed by Pixar. DreamWorks’ efforts delivered decent entertainment but they lacked the warmth, heart and ingenuity of the better Pixar tales.

I won’t claim that Megamind equals Pixar’s peaks, as it doesn’t come with the depth and emotionality one expects from DreamWorks’ competitor. That said, Megamind delivers much better than usual entertainment for DreamWorks Animation and it becomes a consistently fun experience.

Much of the charm comes from the actors. Ferrell tones down some of his goofy excesses to offer a terrific performance as Megamind. While he delivers the comedy we need, he also gives his character a good sense of heart and depth.

Fey gets the more underwritten part as Roxanne, but she adds spark to the role as well, and Pitt has fun with the campy aspects of his straight man character. All involved contribute a lot of fun to their work.

Megamind also delivers a clever twist on the superhero genre. Of course, it mostly riffs off the Superman legend, but it sneaks in references to other works as well, and it makes these allusions lively and endearing.

Like I said, Megamind doesn’t dig deep like the better Pixar films, so don’t expect it to stick with you in the same way. Nonetheless, it brings us a fun comedic adventure that stands as one of the stronger DreamWorks releases.

Footnote: stick around through the middle of the end credits to see a little tag scene.

Megamind appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Though not the best I’ve seen, the visuals seemed more than satisfactory.

Sharpness appeared strong. A few tiny slivers of softness hit a few super-wide shots, but those were negligible. The vast majority of the film presented excellent delineation. The side of a skyscraper showed a little shimmering, but I saw no signs of jaggies or edge enhancement. This transfer lacked any form of distracting defects.

With its stylized comic book look, Megamind presented a broad palette, and the disc replicated those hues well. It veered from bright, warm tones to quieter, more subdued colors with ease and made all of them look vivid and distinctive.

Blacks were deep and dense, and the shadows seemed smooth and accurately rendered. Overall, the image looked pretty terrific.

Megamind offered a strong soundtrack, as the DTS-HD MA 7.1 mix boasted lively material. With all the superhero action, the movie had many chances to make great use of the various channels, and it lived up to those expectations.

At all times, the movie created a good sense of environment and utilized the different speakers to its advantage. Elements were well-placed and blended smoothly. Music also presented nice stereo imaging.

Of course, the action sequences were the most memorable. From start to finish, those helped place us in the world of the super characters, as the battles and destruction came from all around us. These moments came across as winning and involving, and they helped make the mix very involving.

Audio quality kept up with the high standards of the rest of the package. Speech always sounded natural and warm, with no edginess or intelligibility issues. The score was bright and vivid, as the track punched the music well.

Effects finished things with accurate, dynamic audio that represented the elements in a lively manner. Bass response remained consistently deep and firm, as the low-end added solid punch to the track. The audio merited a straight “A”.

As we shift to extras, we open with an audio commentary from director Tom McGrath, producers Lara Breay and Denise Nolan Cascino and writers Alan Schoolcraft and Brent Simons. All five sit together for this running, screen-specific take on the film’s origins and development, story/character areas, cast and performances, animation, music, 3D and related topics.

With this commentary, we get a solid overview of the production. The track covers a good array of subjects and does so in an earnest manner. I’ve found a lot of DreamWorks Animation commentaries to be too “jokey”, so I’m glad this one takes matters more seriously.

In the same vein, we find The Animators’ Corner. A staple of DreamWorks Blu-rays, this mixes storyreels, concept art, behind the scenes material and interview clips. We hear from Cascino, McGrath, Breay, Schoolcraft, Simons, art director Tim Lamb, production designer David James, head of layout Nol Le Meyer, head of city development team Jonathan Gibbs, character effects supervisor Damon Riesberg, head of character animation Jason Schleifer, character lead Jennifer Nelson, animation supervisor Mark Donald, visual effects supervisor Philippe Denis, director of pre-visualization Kent Seki, and actors Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, David Cross, and Jonah Hill.

The topics echo those from the commentary – partly because about half of “Corner” simply repeats the commentary. I find that method to be a disappointment. Because “Corner” leaves out so much of the commentary, it doesn’t replace the audio-only track, but viewers get stuck with lots of redundant information if they screen the commentary and “Corner”. There’s enough good material to make me semi-forgive the repetition, but I’d prefer “Corner” if it didn’t rehash so much content.

We can watch the movie with or without a trivia track. It gives us factoids about cast and crew, the production, story and characters, and background for different components. The trivia pops up often enough to keep us with it, and it offers some fun tidbits.

Comic Creator allows you to place 1960s Batman style exclamations like “Ah!!” or “Ow!” over any of short movie scenes. Why? I don’t know – it seems utterly pointless.

One deleted scene runs one minute, 36 seconds. Introduced by Breay, we see more of Megamind’s post-Metro Man depression. It offers minor entertainment.

Behind the Mind offers an interactive gallery. These break into four categories: “Hideouts” (34 images), “Inventions” (46), “Vehicles” (11) and “Megamind: Good and Evil” (32). We find some good concept art here.

A featurette called Meet the Cast runs nine minutes, 26 seconds and includes comments from Cascino, McGrath, Breay, Ferrell, Cross and Hill. As expected, the clip looks at cast, characters and performances. It lacks real depth but it gives us some fun notes.

Inside Megamind’s Lair goes for seven minutes, 17 seconds and features McGrath, Breay, Cascino, Lamb and James. We learn of character, prop and set design. This becomes a decent little summary.

Animatorman lasts two minutes, one second. It mainly shows live-action video footage of animators who act out the material. Despite the clip’s brevity, it delivers an enjoyable view of this reference material.

With You Can Draw Megamind, we get a 13-minute, 14-second tutorial. Story artist Andy Schuler provides us with the expected lesson to teach us how we can sketch the movie’s lead. Schuler offers a few insights along the way in this likable piece.

Next comes Mega Rap. It runs on minute, one second and gives us an intentionally bad rap over movie shots. It’s an amusing advertisement.

After this we find a “video comic book” called The Reign of Megamind. This offers a little tale that mainly focuses on interactions between Megamind and Roxanne. It gives us an entertaining piece, though the interface seems clunky.

A game called Spot the Difference comes with three difficulty levels. You see essentially the same image on both sides of the screen but need to view alterations between them. It offers mild fun.

Under The World of DreamWorks Animation, we find various promotional elements related to Shrek, Madagascar, How to Train Your Dragon, and Kung Fu Panda. Mostly we get music videos, but a few trailers appear as well. Previews adds promos for Kung Fu Panda 2, Rango and the Megamind game.

Finally, we locate a new short called The Button of Doom. It runs 15 minutes, 52 seconds and shows Megamind’s efforts after his move to good guy territory. “Button” brings back Will Ferrell and David Cross and delivers an entertaining piece.

A second disc provides a DVD copy of Megamind. It includes the commentary, the deleted scene, “Meet the Cast”, “World of DreamWorks Animation” and the previews.

A delightful twist on the superhero genre, Megamind gives us a story from the villain’s point of view. It offers a nice mix of comedy and humor, all executed by a strong cast. The Blu-ray boasts excellent picture and audio along with a mostly informative set of supplements. Megamind winds up as one of the better DreamWorks Animation efforts.