It’s rare that lightning strikes in the movie business. For every really good movie, there are dozens of duds. If movie producers had crystal balls that would guide them in predicting what audiences would buy tickets to see, movie studios would crank out a steady stream of box office hits.
In the rare cases that a movie is a major box office hit, the chances that the inevitable sequel or sequels will be equally good are dreadfully low. You can count truly successful movie sequels on one hand, I’m speaking of movies like The Godfather: Part II, that were as good or arguably better than the orginal.
The point here is that in the movie business, lightning only strikes occasionally and that that it almost never strikes twice, let alone three or four times. Despicable Me 4 is that astounding exception.
I recall seeing the trailers for the original Despicable Me (2010) and thinking that it looked like a lot of over-the-top silliness. In particular, the Minions just looked too cute and crazy for their own good. Comedy creatures can wear a little thin, depending on one’s taste. I’m thinking of the cute, Teddy-Bear-cuddly, nausea-inducing Ewoks in the Star Wars movies or even the Oompa Loompas in the original Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)—vertically challenged actors with the cheap green wigs and orange makeup. I wasn’t a fan.
But the Minions won me over. They were whacky and funny—odd little, pint-sized yellow creatures with distinctly non-human appearance and their own unintelligible language. They were the perfect creatures for international comedy that could, and did, transcend cultural and language barriers around the world. It was brilliant. They were loveable and laughable. Audiences embraced them, globally.
Another key to the Despicable Me formula is the villainous-but-ultimately-likeable main character Gru, voiced by Steve Carell. His thick, fake Russian accent and diabolical delivery gave life to a character that audiences apparently can’t get enough of. If there was ever a perfect match of voice and animated character, this might be it.
Of course there is much more to the success formula. At the center of it is the writing which has carried this franchise through four installments. It’s a mix of funny dialog and an endless succession of sight gags. The pacing is flawless. The movies are a steady stream of finely tuned movie comedy material from people who clearly know their craft.
The original Despicable Me was the very first project from a startup studio called Illumination Entertainment. The rest is history.
Whatever they are doing, they are doing it right, and that includes developing tightly written, polished scripts, bringing aboard some of the most talented and innovative animators in the business. They have also made it their business to hire precisely the right voice talent. They get it right. They get everything right. That kind of commitment and consistency accounts for the success of the Despicable Me series.
The world of digitally animated feature films is highly competitive. Consider the stellar box office hits from Disney and Pixar, over the years. The task of taking them had to be daunting. But that’s exactly what Illumination Entertainment has done, very successfully. The franchise has earned over $5 billion worldwide.
From the opening James Bond/Mission Impossible-inspired sequence of a high-performance sports car racing through the night through hairpin turns to a celebrity gala attended by the world’s most notorious evil masterminds, you know you’re in for a treat.
The movie keeps the pedal to the metal for the remainder of the film, without a single skip or bump.
Without giving away details or spoilers, suffice it to say that Despicable Me 4 is insanely funny from start to finish, thanks to some very talented filmmakers and A-List talent including Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Will Ferrell and Sofia Vergara.
Collectively, they have gone to the proverbial well for the fourth time and have come back with buckets of laughter. I hope they turn around and do it all over again sometime soon.
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