THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Sometimes, sticking to what you know can be a hit or a miss and I think Despicable Me 4 makes that statement clear.
PLOT
The film follows Felonius Gru who continues working for the AVL and being a family man to not just wife Lucy Wilde & three adopted daughters (Margo [Miranda Cosgrove], Edith [Dana Gaier] & Agnes[Madison Polan]), but also his firstborn Gru Junior. Trouble continues knocking his door because childhood rival Maxime Le Mal escapes from imprisonment and threatens to go after his family. He has hated him all his life because when both attended the villains themed Alma mater ‘Lyceé Pas Bon’, the protagonist once stole his song ‘Karma Chameleon’, during a talent show. With the help of his girlfriend Valentina (Sofia Vergara) breaking him out, he has created a ray gun to turn people into cockroaches. And after successfully testing it on himself, he vows to use it on Gru Jr. Not wanting to let that happen, Silas Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan) comes out of retirement to help the Gru family hide via witness protection. Gru takes the job of a solar panel salesman while Lucy works as a hair stylist. As for the minions, they join the AVL and five in particular are recruited by Ramsbottom to be part of the 'Mega Minion' initiative and have superpowers. Mel gets a heat ray, Gus gets a cone shaped head & can fly, Tim becomes stretchy, Jerry gets a spherical rock-like structure of a body that grants him super strength, and Dave grows in size as well as have his own super strength. The program doesn't last too long though as Ramsbottom has to retire it quickly due to the group's severe collateral damage in the city. In a well-off residential town, Gru tries to befriend his neighbor Perry Prescott (Stephen Colbert), but finds common ground with the latter's teenage daughter Poppy. She aspires to be a villain like him and blackmails him for help to steal Lycee Pas Bon's honey badger mascot Lenny. They do pull it off with the assist of Dylan & Samson, but they get caught by the principal Frau Ubelsclecht. Because she recognizes Gru and later tracks him down with a tracker in Lenny's collar, she tips off Maxime of his whereabouts. Only after hanging out with the Prescotts at the country club does the Gru family get confronted by Frau and Maxime simultaneously. Lucy & the girls fend off against the former while Felonius goes to pursue his rival who abducts his son. Poppy helps Gru get onto Maxime's ship before Valentina crashes into a building under construction. Maxime however was able to turn the baby into a cockroach hybrid and hypnotizes him to fight his father. Thankfully with enough words of encouragement by Gru, the baby breaks from the trance and stands up to the main villain long enough before he falls off the building. He & Valentina then gets intercepted by the AVL & Mega Minions thanks to Lucy calling for help. When the Grus return home now that the threat is handled, Junior gets the cockroach genes reversed by Doctor Nefario (Romesh Ranganathan). Poppy also gets enrolled into Lycee Pas Bon as she hoped for. The film ends with Gru visiting Maxime who has his roach genes reversed as well, to apologize for stealing his song and find amends when performing "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" for other cellmates imprisoned by AVL.
THOUGHTS
It is hard to maintain interest with something from my childhood because if it becomes an extensive franchise due to being worth a profit, the jokes don't land for me like they used to. That's just a part of me growing up, but I respect the contribution here made by Chris Renaud & Patrick Delage. Besides the animation looking sharp with everything going on, there are some jokes that land for me. Pierre Coffin still makes the minions hilarious characters with each shenanigans are put in. I mean the whole Mega Minion arc was a jab at the superhero genre as a whole, which is so fitting. Also, the fact one rigs the tennis game and another named Ralph getting stuck in the vending machine was pricelessly hysterical for me to get through. These characters are all for the kids, so I'm glad they still make me laugh after all this time. It's even crazy how the rest of the main cast has stuck around because it now feels like a blessing to still have Steve Carell. We still love Gru here due to his commitment in wanting to be good and succeeds no matter how repetitive. He was willing to die for his own son which was emotionally accurate, knowing he would do the same for the girls. It was even cute for Agnes to question the purpose of lying on when it's wrong & right because that itself is a complicated tool that she was able to figure out before returning home. It even feels like a bonus for Kristen Wiig to have been there from the start as well because although Lucy is clumsy as proven when hilariously botching her job in hair styling, she'll always act from the heart as well. Getting into new characters, Joey King made Poppy a welcome addition because when not being gentle, she has this giant aspect of motivation with what she wants to do with her life. Gru basically saw a bit of himself in her with her act of blackmail and I think he respected it more than he hated it since we all know he used to be a villain. Of course villainy isn't an ideal path in life but at this point, you can't stop what makes you happy in this fictional setting. It is also ironic to see Will Ferrell join this franchise as Maxime because he famously played the titular Dreamworks character Megamind, which came out the same year Despicable Me did. Maxime is much different though because he grew up with the exact aspirations Gru had with villainy. The difference is though he held onto that jealousy and never moved on until finding reconciliation, making him the only one Felonius ever bothered to do with. Before he got that though, he really lived up to being as evil as you'd expect from past antagonists Gru has dealt with. I think with such dynamic arcs, they bring things full circle in showing how valubale teamwork can be when it comes to confronting evil. It is proven proudly here because although Mega Minions were flawed and Gru was intimidated of Poppy, things still went their way when it was over and I hope they still have that luck if the franchise continues as we speak. Despite respecting the whole point of this movie, there were still many things that made zero sense as I sat through it. For starters, why does Gru tell the minions of Maxime right outside the Alma mater when they could’ve talked about it in the car or at headquarters? It’s so ideal if he doesn’t want to get caught. Continuity errors even kick in when I spotted a hockey masked wearing villain in two different takes at the party. Ain’t no way he’s moving like Jason Voorhees when Gru just walked in. It then gets too random that the minions actually had bug spray on them when they didn’t even know what Maxime was gonna present. And hell, how exactly did two cockroaches pull off distracting guards for Maxime to pull off his escape? The fact they can’t show the how is cowardly because it would’ve been a funny gag of an explanation. And yeah, it’s funny that Ralph remains stuck throughout the movie but if he can swimsuit apparel by the other minions, they could’ve went out of their way to get him out of it. I also think Silas messes up in appointing Lucy to be a hair stylist when it’s obvious that ain’t part of her skills. He could’ve had her work at a bakery like before and that worked out. Poppy is also very lucky she wasn’t exposed when she used her dad’s hot air balloon for transportation. That is the least conspicuous way to hide and she should know it. I can complain on Poppy not having a transportation less conspicuous compared to the hot air balloon, but I was more annoyed with the fact minions not bothering to tie it down and Gru not having a babysitter for his son. And I don’t get why Frau, who’s played Renaud, decided to have a bust on the desk that turns on the security lasers within two different buttons rather than a switch from outside. They’re lucky they pull off the heist with this much flaws. And how come Gru’s witness protection house doesn’t have a doorcam? If Silas had that set up and have someone take a shift watching it, they likely would’ve stopped Frau before Maxime ever got there. Lastly, how was the family calm about seeing the Mega Minions? I know they won’t disown them, but I doubt there was any time for Ramsbottom to tell them what he was doing. If you can ignore these problems though, then I’m sure you can still have an average good time. To wrap up, Despicable Me 4 still delivers in being slapstick of an animated sequel. If you like this franchise, then it’s a no brainer you’ll dig this too.
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