What's The Movie About?
Gru's bully from school swears revenge after Gru arrests him, and after he breaks out, Gru's family needs to go into hiding. Also the AVL gives five Minions super powers for some reason.
What I Like.
As always, the familial relation between Gru and and his family is top notch. You cannot convince me that the draw for these movies is anything else, Gru, Lucy, and the girls are great characters and have excellent chemistry. I also like Gru Jr, the new baby. He's the main source of the background gags and he's very cute. Speaking of cute, the bad guy (Maxime, he's called) is obsessed with cockroaches. Are you about to tell me they made cockroaches cute in this movie? Yes, yes I am. Not only that, they make Gru's baby half cockroach in this movie and he was still adorable. It's amazing. I actually like Maxine a lot. Despicable me is no slouch when it comes to villains, and this movie is not an exception. He's maniacal and I like that he's mad for the pettiest reason. Also, he's voiced by Will Ferrell and I could not tell at all. That's crazy. I also, weirdly, like the Mega-Minions storyline. Like it's dumb that this franchise that's had a spy motif for it's entire existence is turning to superheroes, but they kinda admit that? The Mega-Minions suck at being heroes or controlling their powers, so they get retired after going on one mission. And where they all retired to was funny. The comedy can be hit or miss, but the hits are funny and the misses are just eh. My final praise is that the action is super good, surprisingly. I mean, Despicable Me 1 and 2 were fine in that department, but 4 really steps it up. It's thrilling, intense, well directed, and well animated. The stakes of the movie are also pretty high, despite the pettiness of Maxine's motivation. What else, what else... Oh, I like Maxine's girlfriend. I like that she cares about him, but isn't super enthusiastic about everything he does. It felt like a realistic relationship.
That I Didn't Like.
Is it just me or is Carrell's Gru voice gotten harsher than it was? I mean, I guess I can't blame him. He's gotten older and it cannot be easy to do that voice. But it also isn't easy on the ears, much less so now. So we're even. Also, knocking out the easy criticism real quick: all the Minions are annoying. Except for the Mega-Minion and the weird pit crew he has to clean up after the baby. This movie implies that female minions exist which is as horrifying as the fact that they are immortal. Anyway, on to the substantial criticism, this movie has like 5 b-plots. There's the Mega-Minions obviously, but also Gru Jr hating Gru for some reason, Lucy being a shitty hair-stylist and having a woman who's hair she's messed up swear revenge on her, Edith and Agnes taking karate lessons and breaking their Sensei's toe, Gru trying to make friends with their new neighbors, and Gru being blackmailed by the neighbor's kid to help her steal the mascot of an evil school. Most of them come together at the end, but it's still just stuff happening for most of the movie. Despicable Me probably has too many cute mascot characters now, so the only reason I think the going into hiding plot was made is so they can sideline half of them. Also, this movie has a major and completely unnecessary plot hole in the last five minutes. See, there's a shot in the ending of an AVL prison with all the villains from the previous movies, including VECTOR, who as we all know from the Fly Me To The Moon short, is STUCK ON MARS IN HIS UNDWEAR. HOW DID HE GET BACK FROM MARS? ANSWER ME DESPICABLE ME 4! HOW DID VECTOR GET BACK FROM MARS?! Also I didn't need to see Lucy being all flexible and limber, especially with the energy I had from the previous two movies. Gross Roan. SHADDUP.
Final Summation.
Despicable Me 4 is really sloppy, and for a while in the movie I was wondering if the other movies were as good as I remember. But the ending makes up for it. It'll entertain kids and there's some jokes for the adults, plus I like just seeing Gru's family grow.
[Edit: SPEAKING OF MAJOR AND UNNECCESARY PLOT HOLES! I've since learned how Despicable Me 3 ended, and, well, they just completely ignore it. Dru makes a super brief cameo at the very end of the movie, but he literally has no lines and all the Minions just live with Gru's family at the beginning of the movie like everything is normal. This is completely stupid. They sideline the Minions for the main plot already, but instead of having them go work for AVL (And being completely destructive psychopaths), why not just have them living with Dru being bad guys. Hell, the only bit of characterization that is both interesting and consistent is the little butt plugs running off with Dru because he's a better villain Gru! Remember Illumination? Them being dogmatically obsessed with the most evil thing they could fine was like the only idea that was halfway decent from the Minions Movie! Maybe a few of them stay behind and become the baby pit crew, and they are the ones who become the Mega-Minions. You can cut all the jokes that are just regular Minions being assholes to everyone and each other and keep the good Minion jokes. Plus, this allows you more time in the movie to add more to the interesting storylines, or make the more random plot thread connect more to the movie as a whole. Instead you shot yourself 800 times in the foot with gibberish yelling bullets.
Seriously. Did you just forget how the third movie ended?]
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