Every memorable villain needs a pitiful, snivelling minion to torture and berate when his, or her, diabolical master plan falls apart.

Look at Captain Hook and salty seadog Smee, Voldemort and Wormtail, or Cruella De Vil and bumbling henchmen Jasper and Horace.

The same is true of deranged inventors, intent on unleashing evil upon the world. While they are in the laboratory creating mayhem, someone needs to be on standby to throw the switch and set the plan in motion.

“All Igors are forced to serve evil scientists. Our life is a permanent graveyard shift,” explains the hunchbacked lead in Tony Leondis’s disappointing animated feature, which features the voices of John Cusack, Molly Shannon, Steve Buscemi, Sean Hayes, Eddie Izzard, Jennifer Coolidge, Arsenio Hall, John Cleese and Jay Leno.

The much-abused sidekick enjoys a rare moment in the spotlight here.

Regrettably, when the mad scientist behind Igor — screenwriter Chris McKenna — was harvesting ideas for his creation, he forgot all about characterisation, frequent laughs or soul.

Igor (Cusack) resides in the land of Malaria, where he must do the bidding of evil scientist Dr Glickenstein (Cleese).

Sadly, the doctor's inventions rarely work and Igor is unable to point out oversights in his master’s blueprints.

And when fate hands Igor a chance to invent something, the servant does the unthinkable and creates life.

Unfortunately, his monster, Eva (Shannon), isn’t evil at all and believes she is an actress destined to audition for the role of musical heroine Annie.

Aided by sidekicks Scamper the rat (Buscemi) and Brain (Hayes), a thinking organ on wheels, Igor tries to unlock his creation’s dark side.

Meanwhile, rival inventor Dr Schadenfreude (Izzard) schemes to kidnap Eva to win the annual science fair, judged by the King (Leno) at the Killoseum.

Unfortunately for the most part, Leondis’s film is as brain-dead as some of its grotesque characters.

Children will be bored almost as quickly as parents.