Sometimes, I am late on getting on board with certain trends like Wordle (which took me about four months to start playing) or How to Train Your Dragon (which actually took me almost two years). I could go on and on, but for the sake of this review, this actually applies to The Minions.
Despicable Me 4 is here, directed by Chris Renaud (The Lorax) and Patrick Delage (Lune et le Loup) with the vocal talents of Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Will Ferrell, Sophia Vergara, Steve Coogan, and Joey King. Taking place after the last film, Gru (Carell) meets up with a rival villain from his school days named Maxine Le Mal (Ferrell) and has him arrested by the Anti-Villain League at their class reunions. After Maxine escapes from prison and promises revenge, the AVL sends Gru and his family into hiding at a safe house, which presents problems of its own on a lot of levels.
The look here (from Illumination Studios) continues their excellence in their attention to detail, especially when featuring the Lycee Pas Bon School. The voice cast is also good, living up to the bar set by the previous films in this series. With a cast this star-studded, I felt Vergara did the best performance and hit her character perfectly.
With this installment, Despicable Me 4 is basically just adds a new member to the family alongside a new villain. At about ninety minutes, it isn’t too long but there are a lot of different issues brought together that complicates the overall plot a bit more than it should and just made me feel like the series overall is running out of steam. My biggest issue is the film has to be the use The Minions, whose mischief seems to be cut way back in this one. I really like them and look forward to what they do, but here I wanted a lot more. Overall I liked Despicable Me 4, but I did have the feeling of “meh”, so that is why I recommend seeing it on a home streaming service.
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