My Thoughts on Illumination's Films

My Thoughts on Illumination Entertainment's Films

To get prepared for Despicable Me 3, I decided to take a look back at Illumination Entertainment's previous six films (seven if you really want to count Hop).

1. Despicable Me (2010)

I actually talked about both Despicable Me 1 and 2 back in Top 30 Best CGI Movies of All Time (both of which were in the 30-21 range). I actually don't like the Despicable Me films as much as other people do because I feel like these films will entertain kids more than adults. However, I put up with them because my dad loves them. I just don't think DM 1 measures up to the quality of How To Train Your Dragon, Toy Story 3, or Tangled, which premiered the same year, but Despicable Me can still be an enjoyable film. It's just not for everyone.

2. Hop (2011)

I actually hate this movie quite a bit. Hop is about an Easter Bunny who wants to be a drummer and meddles with the life of a live-action human named Fred. This already sounds like one of those horrible live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks or Smurfs movies, and guess what? Tim Hill, who directed the first live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks, is the director of Hop. Want to know what else bothers me about this movie? The Easter Bunnies live on, ugh, Easter Island. The only known inhabitants are chicks (as in baby birds) and, of course, rabbits. However, there are no hens or roosters, so where do the bunnies get the eggs? There was a Walt Disney cartoon that explained how Easter Eggs and goodies would be made by bunnies that did it much better, simply called 'Funny Little Bunnies'.

In fact, I think I'd prefer that over Hop any day of the year!

3. The Lorax (2012)

I actually talked about this film back in Top 30 Worst CGI Movies of All Time, in which I stated that this adaptation of The Lorax took one of Dr. Seuss's greatest stories ever and turned it into a WALL-E knockoff. After a recent re-watch, have I changed my mind? Let's find out.

The story has been expanded so the human boy who visited the Once-Ler, now named Ted, wants to woo a girl named Audrey. Ted and Audrey live in Thneedville, an artificial town with no organic life except for humans. Not even pets. The citizens buy air in bottles and cans. Instead of eating meat and plants, the citizens eat gelatin copies of those foods.

This leads to a big question: Where does the O'Hare Industry get their canned air? Do they get them from another country? How can the people survive with no meat, fruits, or vegetables?

Audrey loves to paint trees, and Ted wants to get a tree so Audrey can marry him. In the original book, the unnamed boy didn't have a reason to visit the Once-Ler, and that makes sense. We didn't need to hear the boy's story in the original book. I am aware that in Blue Sky's Horton Hears a Who, they expanded on the Mayor of Whoville and his son Jojo, but that didn't interfere with the plot. In fact, it makes the characters more relatable and interesting. However, in The Lorax, the characters feel very generic and cliched, and they do more harm to the plot than help.

I actually liked how in the original book, the Once-Ler's face was never shown. It added mystery to the character. Also, like I said back in this post...

http://asateriale.blogspot.com/2017/01/top-30-worst-cgi-movies-of-all-time.html

The forest animals were diminished to Minion clones. 

4. Despicable Me 2 (2013)

Like I said back in this post...

http://asateriale.blogspot.com/2016/12/what-i-think-about-disneys-frozen.html

2013 was an awful year for animated films. However, Despicable Me 2 is a surprising exception. I enjoyed it more than Pixar's feature that year, Monsters University, because it stuck true to the original film without changing the characters drastically and without copying the same plot line as DM1. In MU, Mike is shown to be a nerd. However, in the original film, it was hinted multiple times that Sully was actually smarter than Mike. In the very first trailer, Mike and Sully were supposed to visit a kid's bedroom in Mongolia. However, Mike confused Mongolia with magnolia, and the room they end up in doesn't look Mongolian.

I also felt the film was a bit like a feature-length version of 'SpongeBob ScaredyPants'. I know there are some people that liked MU more than DM2, and even Frozen, but it doesn't live up to Pixar standards for me. However, I'll give it another try some time later this year.

5. Minions (2015)

I felt like Minions was a 90-minute gag fest with questions left unanswered. Why do the Minions wear goggles? How come there are no female Minions? How do they reproduce? Do Minions die? I also feel Sandra Bullock's character, Scralett Overkill, is a weak and overrated villain. In fact, I personally think Miriam in The Prince of Egypt, whom Bullock also voiced, was a more effective character. I also think Minions copied the torture scene in Muppet Treasure Island.

I still think it's insane that this film grossed over a billion dollars worldwide! Well, in the words of PT Flea from A Bug's Life "These are the lousiest circus bugs you've ever seen, and they're gonna make me rich!"

6. The Secret Life of Pets (July 2016)

I have actually seen this movie in theaters, but not during the summer. I saw this on September 17th, 2016 with my dad. I do admit, The Secret Life of Pets is basically Toy Story 1 with animals, but it's a passable film. It's no where near as bad as Norm of the North, but it's not as good as Zootopia or April and the Extraordinary World, either. It's somewhere in the middle. For the animation fans, there's something that might spark your interest: There's a good amount of Minions hidden throughout the film that appear as Easter Eggs. There's even a reference to Sing, their next film, in The Secret Life of Pets!

It's on the back of that bus.
I know what some of you are thinking by this point. "How come you're not being as harsh on this film as Illumination's other films?" Well, I originally saw this movie shortly after the premiere of a Loud House episode that really grinds my gears, 'The Loudest Yard'. Long story short, I feel like the writers on The Loud House like to torture Lincoln sometimes, just like how the writers on The Fairly OddParents would love to torture Timmy. After watching The Secret Life of Pets the next day, I felt a lot better.

7. Sing (December 2016)

Sing is surprisingly the longest animated film of 2016: It has a total running time of 110 minutes (1 hour and 50 minutes), just a couple minutes longer than Zootopia, Your Name (an anime film that was released in the US back on April 7th), and Moana. Sing is a marked improvement over previous Illumination films. This film actually focuses more on story than comedy, albeit a familiar one. Like Zootopia the same year, Sing talks place in an world populated entirely by anthropomorphic animals. However, the world of Sing isn't as inclusive as Zootopia; There are also primates, birds, reptiles, frogs, a snail, and even shrimp in the city!

Instead of being a detective story like Zootopia, however, Sing is a bit like 2011's The Muppets. Like how The Muppets hold a telethon to save the old Muppet theater, Buster Moon, a koala voiced by Matthew McConogy, holds a singing competition to save his theater from repossession. In other words, Sing is like American Idol but with animals. In a similar fashion to films like Shrek or Happy Feet, Sing has characters singing popular songs both classic and contemporary, and they actually mix quite nicely. Congratulations, Illumination Entertainment. You made a quality film without talking Twinkies. Sing is definitely not Disney or Pixar quality, but is definitely worth a watch.

Despicable Me 3 will hit theaters June 30th.

I will talk about Your Name on May 5th, when I talk about it as part of my Oscarless Animated Features project.