Despicable Me 4 (Chris Renaud, 2024) & Longlegs (Osgood Perkins, 2024)
Despicable Me 4 is the perfectly fine new entry in the popular animation franchise.
It probably won’t rock your world, but the mix of cartoonish humor and a relatively simple looking but highly effective animation style makes for an acceptable way to spend an hour and a half with your kids in the cinema.
This time round Gru (Steve Carell) and his family have to go into the Witness Protection Program after new nemesis Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell) escapes from prison and swears to have his revenge by taking youngest family member Gru Jr. away from them.
Even if you consider this might not be such a bad thing, as Gru Jr. is a chip off the old block and basically exists to make Gru’s life hell, the man is such a proud dad there is no doubt he will eventually have his face-off with Maxime.
Before that there are quite a few little sub plots that are touched upon but then quickly left behind, as if both writers Mike White and Ken Daurio and directors Chris Renaud and Patrick Delage realize there is no point in testing the limits of our patience.
Some of those story strands have to do with the fake identities the various family members have to assume in their sleepy new hometown. Lucy (Kristen Wigg) briefly becomes a hairdresser before setting the local hairsaloon on fire. Gru is now a solar panel salesman who tries to get his new neighbor to invite him to the local country club. When Gru and Lucy finally get to hang out with the neighbors at the tennis club, they are soon taken somewhere else for some real action.
Most interesting is the neighbors teenage daughter Poppy (Joey King) who sees right through Gru and his new identity and blackmails him into an exciting heist adventure. While Gru at first sees Poppy as nothing but trouble, he comes to realize she genuinely admires his talents, which of course does wonders for his ego.
The minions are also there, and some of them even have superpowers. They do their thing but they are clearly not as dominant as in Minions 2: The Rise of Gru (2022). Some of them just pop up from time time, then go their merry way again. But as DM4 has a distinct low key Adventure of the Week feel, this casual approach to both main and supporting characters is actually not such a bad thing. What this movie offers is definitely more of the same, but in a pleasant enough way.
I give it three stars
LONGLEGS
Longlegs is a rather excellent horror thriller, that puts a lot of emphasis on mood and dread, but is also both truly scary and thrilling.
The movie is written and directed by Osgood ‘Oz’ Perkins, and stars Maika Monroe as FBI agent Lee Harker, whose singular character trait is that she feels things rather deeply. It’s not quite a sixth sense, but it comes close.
Sometimes her hunches are right, as in the chillingly effective opening scene, but, as she hastens to say when she is promoted to a new job, sometimes she isn’t.
Still, a 50/50 percentage batting average is pretty good for any young detective, and so she is assigned to the case of Longlegs, a mysterious serial killer who isn’t even really there when his killings occur. So does this Longlegs character have an accomplice or is there some evil power in play?
This is basically all you need to know about the plot. Monroe is terrific as the sensitive and intelligent FBI agent - shades of Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling - and she gets able support from her boss, agent Carter, who is played by the great Blair Underwood. And yes, Nicolas Cage is there to play one of his trademark controlled freakout roles.
The only reason I didn’t completely connect to the movie, has to do with the coolly observant camera work, which provided just a little too much distance between the characters on screen and yours truly.
Longlegs mostly takes place in the 1990’s in the Pacific West, but sometimes goes back to the 1970’s. Its story seems inspired by modern classics like The Silence of the Lambs and Seven, and at times it comes close to matching that level.
And if you like a good finale, the last ten minutes are a kicker!
I give it four stars!