{"id":44534,"date":"2026-05-25T09:25:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T14:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=44534"},"modified":"2026-05-25T09:25:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T14:25:24","slug":"belated-movie-reviews-942","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2026\/05\/25\/belated-movie-reviews-942\/","title":{"rendered":"Belated Movie Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The kid is going to school to learn how to half-close his eyes.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Despicable Me 4<\/strong><\/em> (2024) is a limping attempt to recapture the magic of Despicable Me<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (2010) and Despicable Me 2<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (2013) that is unsuccessful, but rather innocuous. Gru and his family’s location in a witness concealment is revealed to an old school rival because Gru cannot resist a villainous talent show at his old school. While there, it’s revealed the rival is now\u00a0 … part cockroach.<\/p>\n

Seems a bit on the nose.<\/p>\n

Gru’s family is then shipped to the town of his alma mater<\/em>, a school for villainy, under the philosophy of keep your old school marm close<\/em>.\u00a0Much to Gru’s dismay, the next door neighbor’s daughter is scheming to gain admission to the same school, recognizes Gru, and traps him into raiding his old school. The raid is a success and a failure, as he now has a running battle with the rival.<\/p>\n

The magic of the first two movies rested in large part on the minions. They were the instrumentality of a number of the important themes of the movies, from the running gags about minion competitiveness to how much they can accomplish when they work together. In the midst of implementing villainy they demonstrate the virtues of, yes, virtue<\/em>, such as funding the moon-rocket from their own pockets.<\/p>\n

In this movie? They don’t really have a pivotal role. They’re memorable for being unmemorable. Instead of that ridiculous, hilarious competition and commentary on erasing limits in competition during the close credits of Despicable Me<\/strong><\/em>, there’s nothing more than a minion scuttling about.<\/p>\n

Oh, yeah, there’s a baby cluttering up the screen, too, but it’s not even a MacGuffin<\/a>. The story arcs of Edith, Agnes, and Margo are advanced not a whit.<\/p>\n

Are there some good bits? I’m sure there was – but I don’t remember them. The story is second or third rate, and it just doesn’t measure up to the first two. Disappointing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despicable Me 4 (2024) is a limping attempt to recapture the magic of Despicable Me (2010) and Despicable Me 2 (2013) that is unsuccessful, but rather innocuous. Gru and his family’s location in a witness concealment is revealed to an old school rival because Gru cannot resist a villainous talent \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44534"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44644,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44534\/revisions\/44644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}