So... There is a fourth Despicable Me movie out. Honestly, I'm kinda shocked they even made a second one, but that was the 2010s, I was younger, dumber and not really in a good place. I never actually watched any of the Despicable Me movies until I saw Minions: The Rise of Gru, and that movies was... I mean it wasn't awful. I have been curious about Despicable Me, it is kind of a big thing in animated cinema and I have been meaning to check it out, but it has never been very high on my list because... I hate Illumination studios, but there's the fourth movie out now and it was available on streaming for me so why not?
Despicable Me follows Gru, a super-villain, as he plans to steal a shrink ray in a plot to steal the Moon, however another villain by name of Vector steals the ray from him, and Gru enlists the help of three orphaned girls to get in back, but he finds he gets more than the Shrink Ray. I'm going to be honest, I can't really say this is a great movie story-wise, like it hits familiar beats and you know what direction it's gonna go. Like, you just know that there is going to be something important on the same day he needs to do his moon heist, you know there is going to be a third act break-up, like it's all fairly straight forward. Despicable Me does get away with it though, firstly because this is Illuminations first feature production, but mostly because it is just so charming. People might scoff at the idea of "charm" taking something far, but the entire point of the entertainment industry is to primarily be entertaining, and charm can be a major part of entertainment value.
A lot of it is down to the characters, and the found family trope that I am realizing I am much more of a sucker for than I initially thought. Gru and the girls are just charming characters to watch, I want to see them interact, I want to see them be a family, I even want to see the turmoil of Gru trying to choose between villainy and fatherhood, I think if the characters weren't as charming and didn't work as well off of each other, the movie would have suffered a lot more. Side characters are also amusing, I guess with the only exception being Vector, not that he's a bad character or even a bad antagonist, but I think I wanted to punch him in the face more than I enjoyed seeing him on screen, and I get that is the main idea, we want to be on Gru's side, but I don't think making him a nepo-baby dork was the right idea. Of course, with Despicable Me, we have to talk about the giant yellow Tic Tacs in the room, the Minions. The Minions have been cited as one of the worst things to ever happen in animation, with constant overexposure and worthless knock-offs in other movies have made the Minions into one of the more disliked aspects of the franchise. Honestly, that's kind of a shame because I actually thought they were tolerable in this movie. Actually, that's not entirely right, the Minions had moments I actually thought were funny, they kind of harkened back to an era of classic slapstick cartoons, and even when I didn't think they were really funny, they were still kind of a cute and charming funny. I think if the Minions hadn't become the mascot for Illumination they might be more accepted.
I do have to give props to the voice cast too, Jason Segel was almost unrecognizable as Vector, Steve Carell was good, and I will always love a Julie Andrews cameo. Plus, I never would have guessed Miranda Cosgrove would translate well in the voice acting booth.
Speaking of the comedy, the movie is kind of mixed. Some jokes I knew were coming, and some did fall flat. That being said, there were some gags that I actually did like, one of my favourites was actually towards the start of the movie where Gru revealed he stole a Jumbotron, I totally expected the screen behind him to show footage of the theft, but then I realized that the screen was the Jumbotron, I don't know why but that gag really caught me off guard. Again though, even when the comedy wasn't laugh-out loud funny, it still had a charm to it. I think my only really complaints with this movie are with the animation and music, not that either is bad, but both are just kind of... standard. I can give some leeway to the animation, again this was their first animated feature, so it's not like I'm expecting Pixar quality right off the bat, but it didn't really have much to it, it was mostly just "This is what we need, don't animate anything else", just getting the job done but not really going above and beyond, which isn't really a criticism that goes away with Illumination, but to be fair they do improve in future movies. As with the music, I just don't think Pharrell Williams was the best choice to sing the theme, like I dunno, I just didn't think his voice was the right fit, but that might just be me.
I have to say, I'm honestly impressed with Despicable Me, I was fully expecting a bog standard, average at best, mediocre at worst family film, but what I got was a genuinely charming film. I don't think I can really call it a great movie, honestly I don't know if I'd even call it "good", but I would be a liar if I said it didn't have its charm. The characters were charming, the story was charming, the comedy had a charm to it, I can't think of many movies I can recommend just on how charming I think they are. I can see why this became a flagship franchise for Illumination. Do I recommend it? Yes, but I think I'll go Slight Recommendation on this one, mostly because charm only does get you so far, but I genuinely think that Illumination made a decent family film here. If only they could do it again.
No comments:
Post a Comment