Despicable Me 4 - Not Our Favorite in the Series, Although it Still Provided Few Laughs

Since the first time we found out about this movie, my wife and I were totally excited and eager to see it at the earliest. Which was why we were willing to see the film on the first day of its special screening on Sunday where it only had one show. It was very challenging since apparently with the school holiday in Indonesia, most families decided to see it as well. Luckily we managed to get a couple of seats in a cinema that was quite OK for us. All right then, let's get on with the movie.

Brief Story Line

Gru (Steve Carrell - The Big Short, Speed Force TV series etc) who now worked as Agent for Anti Villain League and married to Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig - Wonder Woman 1984, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World etc) were happily living together with their adopted daughters Margo (Miranda Cosgrove - Mother of the Bride, iCarly TV series etc), Edith (Dana Gaier), Agnes (Madison Polan) and the new born baby Gru Jr. However, after the criminal mastermind Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell - Barbie, Eurovision Song Contest etc) escaped from prison, he vowed to get revenge on Gru together with his fianceé Valentina (Sofia Vergara - Griselda TV series, The Emoji Movie etc).

As recommended by his boss Mr. Longbottom (Steve Coogan - The Secret Life of Pets, Tropic Thunder etc), Gru and the whole family with 3 of the minions hid in a safe house. But he would soon find out that life in the suburb might not be so easy as he met with their new neighbors, the Prescotts that consisted of the father Perry (Comedian Stephen Colbert), his wife Patsy (Chloe Fineman - Father of the Bride 2022 version etc) and their suspicious daughter Poppy (Joey King - A Family Affair, Going in Style etc).

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

In my previous post about Despicable Me 3, I mentioned that Steve Carrell would no longer voice the beloved Gru. But I guess nobody in Hollywood could really say it would be the last time at all with so many sequels, prequels, spin-off released frequently due to commercial success. For me and my wife who are fans of this franchise (especially those minions), we were just happy to watch them again. Unfortunately though, our high expectation on this movie led to a bit of disappointment as we did not find it to be as hilarious as all the previous films. In fact, I think this is the only movie that both of us did not truly enjoy ourselves.

My wife felt that she was unable to click with the movie due to very little showing of the minions and the part about Mega minions were not funny, which I totally agreed. We also thought that the new characters were uninteresting and it actually took the focus out of the more important persons, i.e. the family itself (particularly Margo who was shown to have trouble but seemed totally forgotten?), and also the villain Maxime. This time amazingly our views were almost identical with critics who even branded the new characters useless. It's not to say that the additional cast were bad, it's just they were poorly written. It was quite strange considering the writers Mike White (School of Rock, The White Lotus anthology series etc) and Ken Daurio (co-writer of Horton Hears a Who, The Lorax etc) were pretty experienced.

However, aside from those shortcomings, we still found time to laugh on the 3 minions who followed Gru and the behavior of Gru Jr (the highlight of this movie). The brief heist was OK, but the climax involving Maxime was rather too short. The music though was nice and surprisingly the sound effect was better than I expected. Just like its predecessors, this one is quite safe for kids and categorized for all ages in Indonesia. It has duration of 95 minutes including closing credits that would sometime show one of the minions but no mid or post-end credit scene. The movie itself was directed by Chris Renaud (who also directed the original Despicable Me and the second film).

In the end, this was another movie that would likely appeal to large audience and probably would be a major hit for Illumination. As long as people still want to look at the Minions' antics and crazy behavior, then likely there would be many more of their films in the future (I think the next one would be Minions 3). But in term of quality, this is definitely not the best one in the series, at least for us. So if you just want to have fun with your family, then I think your children would be delighted. However you might be disappointed like us if you wish to see a sequel better than the previous ones.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars