Tag Archives: Sofia Vergara

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Despicable Descendent

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Despicable Me 4

by Hope Madden

Despicable Me is a nice franchise—harmless and colorful, filled with engaging personalities. And perhaps what has made it as endearing as it has been for all these years and episodes is that Gru (Steve Carell) is actually, almost effortlessly, a good dad.

He’s had practice. For 14 years he’s been caring for the non-aging sisters Edith, Margo and Agnes, the orphans he took in so long ago to better pull off his greatest (to date) heist! Only to find out that he preferred fatherhood.

It helps—both in practicing paternal instincts and in entertaining movie theaters brimming with highly sugared tots—that he also cares for an army of oblong yellow goofballs.

So, 14 years, many capers, one wife and new son later, Despicable Me 4 finds Gru and his family hiding from his first arch-nemesis, high school bully Maxime (Will Ferrell), who swears vengeance from a class reunion slight with a plan to steal Gru’s infant son.

That is villainy.

Plus, there’s a counterattack operation involving superpowered minions. And there’s a wealthy neighbor family (Stephen Colbert and Chloe Fineman ably voice the upper-crusty parents) whose precocious teen Poppy (Joey King) hatches her own villainous schemes.

With all the crisscrossing, Easter egg bedecked, vibrant plot threads, it’s the one between Gru and Poppy that most satisfies as it reminds us again what a great girl dad Gru makes.

Kristin Wiig is underutilized (again) as Gru’s wife, Lucy and Sofia Vergara deserves more than what her character, Valentina, offers. Some of the secondary plot sequences feel like filler, but some bits of outright filler (a Dance Dance Revolution bit and everything with a vending machine) are highlights.

Ken Daurio’s been part of the DM writing team since the start, but Episode 4 marks the first collaboration with Mike White, whose previous work includes real highs (School of Rock, Beatriz at Dinner) and real lows (The Emoji Movie). Together the writers find a nice balance of nuttiness for characters—legacy and new—to continue to make this franchise a fun one.

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So Bad It’s Criminal

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Hot Pursuit

by Hope Madden

Remember Election – Alexander Payne’s 1999 movie about high school student body electoral process? Reese Witherspoon was funny. She was also truly funny in Legally Blonde, a film that had no business working at all and yet did, miraculously, because of Witherspoon.

While Sofia Vergara isn’t quite as proven on the big screen, four Emmy nominations suggest she has some comic talent as well. So, if we can’t blame them, why in the world is Hot Pursuit so, so awful?

Better yet, why in the hell did they sign up to do it?

Witherspoon plays Cooper, an uptight cop assigned to transport duty. She needs to get a recently widowed drug lord’s wife to Dallas to testify against her late husband’s boss.

Things go terribly wrong, obviously, and soon Hot Pursuit clarifies itself as a fish out of water buddy cop cliché of a road trip movie.

They have nothing in common, you see. Cooper’s uptight, small, intense, while Vergara’s Daniella is a steaming pile of racial stereotypes. Daniella has big boobs, but Cooper dresses like a boy. How can they ever make it to Dallas?

Anne Fletcher, who also helmed the abysmal road trip cliché The Guilt Trip, outdoes herself with this one. Not one joke lands, not one gag goes over, not a frame of the film feels anything other than stale and beneath the talent involved.

David Feeney and John Quaintance took a break from anemic TV sitcoms to pen this. Dan Fogelman wrote The Guilt Trip, which means that Fletcher intentionally chose two separate, awful road trip movies to bring to the screen. Why? Does she hate us?

Witherspoon and Vergara work hard to keep this thing afloat, and Witherspoon fares a little better because at least her character is not outright offensive. There’s almost chemistry between the two – something that might have translated into a fun onscreen bond if either one of them had a single funny line to deliver. Banter is really too much to hope for.

Verdict-1-0-Star