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DESPICABLE ME 4

"Hilarious Family-Centered Chaos"

Content: +1 Moderately questionable elements. (Discernment required for young children.)
Entertainment Quality:
NoneLightModerateHeavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

DESPICABLE ME 4 opens with Gru and three minions traveling to Gru’s old School of Villainy to capture Maxime Le Mal. With help from the Anti-Villain League, Gru captures Maxime, who’s transformed himself into a human-sized cockroach with superpowers. However, Maxime escapes from prison and vows to track down Gru and his family. So, Gru and his family go into witness protection. Gru and his family still aren’t safe. The young teenage girl next door, Poppy, recognizes Gru. She wants to be a villain and blackmails him into helping her steal the School of Villainy’s mascot, a mean honey badger. The heist exposes the family’s secret location and endangers his infant son.

DESPICABLE ME 4 is often hilarious. It focuses a lot on the comical chaos that the minions bring. DESPICABLE ME 4 has a strong moral, pro-family worldview. Gru protects his family and must save his son from the villain. Also, little Agnes refuses to tell a lie. However, much of the humor focuses on the comical slapstick chaos that the minions cause. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for younger children.

Content:

(BBB, PP, C, Ev, VV, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:
Very strong moral, pro-family worldview where hero works for the Anti Villain League to arrest villains, bringing them to justice, and must save his baby son from the villain and protect his family, with positive parental figures, and story promotes redeeming the evil in villains, but villain says cockroaches are a great advance in evolution, and he transforms himself into a cockroach supervillain;

Foul Language:
No foul language, but baby goat poops little pellets;

Violence:
Lots of strong and light slapstick cartoon, comic violence such as character shoots other characters with pellet gun, wacky characters hit one another, objects including some doors fall on characters, hero fights to grab and capture villain, agents fight to grab and capture villain, woman in grocery store chases another woman who accidentally burned off her hair at the beauty salon, woman runs into automatic door, woman slides on stick of butter, woman slides into glass freezer compartment, characters fall, characters are transformed into super soldiers, one super soldier has a laser flame power in his eyes and accidentally burns objects when he turns it on (including a satellite in space and part of a woman’s giant hairdo), character gets trapped in a large red Jello mold, and his two friends dip their spoons into the mold to eat it, characters cling from objects high in the sky to avoid falling, flying machine with metal shovel and grabbing arms wrecks street and sidewalk when it rises out from under the ground, characters hit each other with a pool noodle (one furiously), two characters slap another character’s rear end just for laughs when he gets stuck in vending machine, etc.;

Sex:
No sex but some minor characters exhibit gender disorientation;

Nudity:
No nudity;

Alcohol Use:
No alcohol use;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:
No smoking or drugs, but man is shot in the hip with a tranquilizer dart, which causes him to walk funny; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:
Young teenage girl blackmails father next door to help her steal the mascot (a honey badger) of the School for Villainy, the honey badger is mean but is tamed when hero’s baby gives it some baby food in a squeeze packet, it’s implied that the school’s female principal has treated the animal badly, and the animal is scared to return to the school, villain kidnaps his rival’s infant son.

More Detail:

In DESPICABLE ME 4, Gru must hide his family from a new villain who’s escaped prison, but a young teenage girl living in their new neighborhood blackmails Gru, which results in exposing Gru’s family and endangering Gru’s infant son. DESPICABLE ME 4 is often hilarious, with a strong moral, pro-family worldview, but it focuses a lot on the comical slapstick chaos of the minions, so MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older pre-teenage children.

The movie opens with Gru and three minions traveling to Gru’s old School of Villainy to capture a new villain, Maxime Le Mal. With the help of agents from the Anti-Villain League, Gru captures Maxime, who’s transformed himself into a human-sized cockroach with superpowers.

However, Maxime escapes from prison and vows to track down Gru and his family. So Gru’s boss, Silas Ramsbottom, orders Gru and his family into a safe house in a small town. He also transfers all but several of the minions to headquarters, where they cause lots of chaos.

Gru and his family aren’t safe in their new home, though. The young teenage girl next door, Poppy Prescott, wants to be a supervillain. She recognizes Gru and blackmails him into helping her steal the School of Villainy’s mascot, a mean honey badger. The heist exposes the secret location of Gru’s family and endangers his infant son.

Meanwhile, Silas has transformed five minions into super soldiers. Their new powers just make them more dangerous.

DESPICABLE ME 4 is often hilarious. It focuses a lot on the comical chaos that the minions bring to every situation. Of course, sometimes the minions just cause lot of chaos on their own, with no instigation whatsoever.

DESPICABLE ME 4 has a strong moral, pro-family worldview. Gru and his wife, Lucy, protect their children. Also, Gru must save his son from the villain, and little Agnes refuses to tell a lie. Happily, Poppy’s interest in becoming a supervillain wanes as she experiences the love between Gru and his family. Finally, Gru learns how to apologize and become a better person. However, much of the humor in DESPICABLE ME 4 focuses on the comical chaos created by the slapstick antics of the minions. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for younger children.



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