Movie Review: Despicable Me 4

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B

Though not quite as strong as the first two Despicable Me movies, this film is a lot of fun. 

With this film it is obvious that the filmmakers know exactly what the audience wants from these movies. It may not offer any surprises, but it does offer the fun that audiences except. As such, while not original (something that is hard to be with the fourth (or sixth) movie in a series), this is a lot of fun. The basic storyline is very simple and Saturday Morning cartoon like. Yet this simplicity gives the whole movie an unpretentious feel and adds to the charm. While you can always see where the film is going, I was never once bored watching this. Part of this is because the main characters still remain the lovable and delightful characters we fell in love with when the first movie came out. Another reason is that this movie has many great comedic and action set pieces. The climatic action sequence is a lot of fun, especially due to a really fun villain. Great comedic set pieces like the Mega-Minion's (superhero versions of the Minions) first attempt at being heroes, the heist scene and the karate scene are truly funny. 

Admittedly this movie does have some problems. I wish that this movie did more to connect the Mega-Minions and Gru's story, which often have too little to do with each other. Also, with the filmmakers' instance to throw as many jokes as possible at us for all the jokes that hit, there are also quite a few that fall flat. 

Co-director Chris Renaud co-directed the first two Despicable Me movies and both Secret Life of Pets films. The other co-director Patrick Delage is a first-time director of a feature film. Though he was a lead animator on the first two Despicable Me movies and the Sing films. Beforehand he had been an animator on the Disney films, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Tarzan (1999) and The Emperor's New Groove (2000) as well as the Pixar movies Ratatouille (2007) and WALL·E (2008).

This is another really fun addition to this popular franchise.