Every Illumination Movie Ranked

funding for shaperless is provided by squarespace the sponsor of today's video from websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business illumination i don't feel like writing an intro about illumination they're a pretty bad animation studio known for making bad animated movies that's all you need to know it's generally agreed that they've made only one good movie so you'd all know what it was if i ranked this the normal way which is why we're not doing that this time we're starting with the best illumination movie and working our way down until we get to the work until we get to the worst one in order to offer a little bit of suspense in terms of how the ranking will pan out and more importantly to emulate the descent into hell i felt when watching the studio's output there is no light at the end of the tunnel here there is nothing but chaos and despair i'm sure you guys are gonna have a great time with this video i'm not let's get this over with [Music] the road to hell is paved with good intentions on a completely unrelated note despicable me 1. out of illumination's entire filmography this one sticks out the most for one simple fact it's actually pretty good yeah even after all these years i still really like it and i cannot stress enough how seriously bizarre it is to watch this film in close proximity to the rest of this garbage studios catalog it's like i'm watching a movie with an actual tight plot where each scene actually furthers the story along in some way and there are character arcs and emotional moments that land and it's pretty funny and overall a good time seriously who the hell made this movie because it sure was an illumination well my personal theory that i expressed in my megamind video that came out over three years ago holy [ __ ] was that since this was illumination's very first movie they weren't aware of the fact that they didn't need to try in order to make a profit so they developed the movie's story in a similar manner to a pixar or top tier dreamworks film focusing on giving the story a strong emotional core and making the characters likeable and funny it wasn't until after the movie came out and minions took over the entire world that they realized hey we don't need to waste all that energy that we put into this first movie trying to make these stories emotionally resonant or funny for anyone over the age of five we can just do minion shenanigans gobbly [ __ ] look at us we're so quirky what but yeah rather than focus on the plague this movie inadvertently inflicted on cinema in the long run let's just talk about the movie as is and why it's pretty good first of all i just really like gru he's such a fun protagonist and i love the voice steve carell puts on for him it's become pretty iconic over the years and not only is gru really funny but he has a legitimately really good character arc in this movie as he lets go of his villainy through his love for the goyles these three girls are so charming as well i love the know it all one voiced by icarly and the sassy lost child and the lovable scrimblo bimblo it's just nice to see them all bond even when the girls didn't expect to like gru and gru didn't expect to like the girls ooh i love the found family trope the minions are perfectly fine in this one they're just charming background characters who don't take focus away from the main ones there's only one scene with them in this movie that's a little too hyperactively focused on minion shenanigans and that's when they go to the store to get a new unicorn toy and this this scene right here is the blueprint this is ground zero for what would become the tone of every illumination movie to follow this one it's genuinely chilling to stare into the eye of the beast and remember that this is the exact point where it all went wrong but enough about that [ __ ] let's talk about the most amazing character of all time vector i have no idea why but vector's existence just makes me lose it i mean he's vector committing crimes with both direction and magnitude i have severe brain rot when it comes to this goofy villain dude because whenever i see a meme involving him or see him activate his flight suit sorry or see him activate his flight suit i just burst out into a massive fit of laughter i mean it's vector honestly though he's unironically a pretty good villain for this movie he doesn't need to be a massive threat he just needs to be funny and constantly able to one-up gru which he does since he's far younger and stuff now i'm sure all you gentle minions in the audience must be saying hey wait a minute in minions the rise of gru they show in a photograph that he's a kid around the same time as gru how come the funny bank guy keeps saying vector is younger than him in this movie and how come he just generally looks much younger than him is illumination really that dumb that they didn't go back to watch the first despicable me before making this prequel and they just forgot how old vector's supposed to be well danny kind of forgot about well to that i say balderdash i completely trust the integrity of the studio that brought us hop and the secret life of pets too and the emoji move wait that wasn't them could have fooled me obviously these visionaries would never make such a careless error which is why i am hereby proposing the vector grimwalker theory you see mr perkins has clearly been cloning vector and killing off each clone when they don't live up to his standards the vector we see in despicable me is completely different from the one pictured in rise of gru but hey that's just an objective fact because there's no other explanation he kind of forgot about also fun fact i'm just stalling for time at this point because i don't want to talk about the bad movies i.e basically every other movie illumination is made whatever this one's pretty fun it's not amazing or super deep or anything and it has some lame childish humor here and there but by illumination standards it's downright miraculous megamind is still better obviously but you know i'll take what i can get so now for the bad movies right well yes but actually no turns out there's one other illumination movie that i thought was pretty okay i know tom allen unbelievable right why don't we talk about it now stop singing damn i can't believe it guys but they really did it illumination went ahead and made a c to your dreamworks film i always knew they had it in them sing two is surprisingly kind of okay like you can tell they put more effort in right from the start the opening musical segment is better and more visually interesting than the entirety of sing one the elephant even dabs at the end so that's how you know it's really good anyway most of the cliche character traits that we're focused on with the main cast in the first movie don't really play as much of a role in this one all of the character conflicts our main peeps have now are slightly more interesting to watch not amazing or anything but they're not the most predictable things in the world either and none of the characters in this are annoying unlike basically every other illumination movie where there's at least a couple little shits you can't stand i don't know the main cast of the sing movies while pretty cliche are kinda likable and you want to see them succeed and become stars all of them except for the seth macfarlane mouse who thankfully isn't in this one at all and they don't even address what happened to him after the last movie he was last seen driving off with a bear hanging onto his car so everyone assumes he's canonically dead and that is just the funniest thing in the world to me there's also some showbiz related plot lines that i kind of enjoyed like how this [ __ ] producer guy forces mr koala to put his daughter in the show even though she can't act or the plot about lion bono grieving his dead wife and refusing to perform or even listen to his songs for 15 years i don't know this [ __ ] ain't half bad but that doesn't necessarily make it all that good there's a bunch of stuff that gets glossed over real hard like the daughter gets over not being the lead anymore super easily and is even willing to do the show behind her father's back which like wait when did they show her having problems with her father that didn't happen did it and the porcupine sings the u2 song to lion bono to remind him how much he loves making music that's a nice scene but then the next time we see him he's completely convinced to do the show wait a minute shouldn't there have been like a conversation after the song about the ramifications of him coming back it seemed like he was extremely adamant about not wanting to do it but then him listening to someone singing one of his songs completely changed his mind that doesn't make sense so yeah there's a bunch of shortcuts the script takes here and there plus much like the first movie the first act here is also loaded with completely unnecessary pop songs playing one after the other and the middle kind of drags and you really just want to see them get to the ending performance already but overall despite its problems i kind of enjoyed myself the characters are likable the setting is cool the villain is decent the musical segments are really good it genuinely didn't feel like i was watching an illumination movie like i said at the beginning it gave me a rare spark of hope that the studio was becoming interested in making movies that can be watched and enjoyed by someone over the age of five and it was a more than welcome surprise so yeah more movies like sing too please illumination i can't believe a slightly above average film warrants a massive w for this studio but that's where we're at especially considering we've now talked about every illumination movie that isn't bad there's only two of them the downward spiral officially begins now downward spiral downward spiral downward spiral downward spiral downward spiral despicable me too did you know that this movie's tagline on letterbox is back to work that's probably the most generic tagline you could possibly put for a sequel of all time is that official or did letterbox do that like huh also fun fact this is currently the one and only illumination movie to be nominated for best animated feature at the oscars this one i just okay i mean it is one of the better ones i guess it's also not very good some of the charm from the first film is still intact and there's a couple of decent jokes here and there i still really like gru and his relationship with the goyals and even though it's a really generic sequel trope to just give him a female love interest i don't know she's kind of fun i guess the relationship isn't really that fleshed out or anything but it's fine i like how they gave dr nefario a fitting storyline about wanting to leave and keep doing evil things plus of course i gotta talk about the epicness that is el macho he's not really a great villain or anything because he doesn't have that much time to be villainous but come on he's el macho that's epic his ludicrously excessive fake death is probably the funniest part of the movie oh and also i like that nacho hat it's a very cool hat i want one i want that this movie is watchable enough and has some fun elements but unfortunately a lot of it is just generic meandering kids movie crap unlike the first movie which had a pretty tight focus on its story this one's got a bunch of subplots and it divides its time between and it messes with the pacing making it feel like very little is happening to advance the story there's barely a second act so by the time we get to the third act climax i'm like oh we're here already that doesn't feel right there's also a ton of filler that serves no purpose other than to make the babies in the audience laugh and that includes the far larger number of minion scenes i don't hate the minions in this one but i do feel nothing towards them they're just there being their delightfully no longer entertaining selves so yeah a bit of a mixed bag could have been better but could have been worse i guess i'd willingly sit through it again if i was babysitting a child who really wanted to watch it though if they asked me to put on minions i would grab the dvd then pretend to trip and accidentally drop the dvd out a nearby open window where it would fall into a wood chipper i conveniently set up beforehand oops sorry kid what a sad accident guess we gotta watch something good instead stop singing or you're fired you know the way people online talk about sing you'd think it killed their grandma or something yeah it's bad but nothing about it really got on my nerves that much the characters are all pretty cliche archetypes like the rebellious teenager the stay-at-home mom the kid who doesn't want to work as a getaway driver for his crime dad wait what anyway yeah we've kind of seen all these characters before but that doesn't stop them from being mildly endearing and sympathetic i think the vocal performances all work pretty well and none of the characters are all that annoying in particular i think the matthew mcconaughey koala is a charismatic lead who holds a lot of the movie together the best parts of the movie are the beginning where it hasn't fully hit you how boring and played out the plot is yet and the ending where we get some legitimately pretty good musical performances my favorite was obviously taran edgarton performing i'm still standing and look if this movie had to exist to get him cast as elton john then so be it he does a great job here anyway didn't i say this movie's bad or something let's get back to that yeah this movie really drags in the middle with a ton of boring scenes and of course the whole liar revealed thing which isn't as self-indulgent as it could have been but it's still pretty annoying and then we gotta have the super sad hallelujah song where the characters are alone and about to lose all the good things in their lives at this point you're just thinking get to the musical numbers already so i can turn this off speaking of musical numbers while the ending performances are good there sure are a lot of excessive pop songs played in quick succession during the audition scene which is fun there's also a fart joke that probably takes the title of most pointless fart joke of all time like i genuinely don't know what this fart joke accomplished it's hard to really describe what makes a fart joke pointless but if you watch the movie i think you'll see what i mean the fact that they're all animals is completely pointless and they never do any work to flesh out this animal world because that would require talent that illumination clearly does not have another thing the movie doesn't flesh out is the main characters beyond the basics and we don't even really get any compelling interactions between them when they're all in this singing competition oh yeah and they just dropped the whole singing competition thing by the end anyway so whatever it's too hard for the movie to pick a winner even though narratively it clearly makes sense for the elephant girl to be the winner but no that's too hard oo woo finally the seth macfarlane mouse really started to get on my nerves after a while which i guess makes it funnier that he's canonically dead in the sequel so yep it's a movie it's pretty bad but there were nonetheless parts of it i liked particularly when it served as a teaser for rocket man sorry that i didn't outright despise it i guess but don't worry there's plenty more movies to get through that i did despise guru and his minions have seized the island of koridai minions the rise of groove baby minion sweep hashtag best movie ever hashtag i wanna die oh my god what an amazing experience watching this movie was my friends and i from across the country gathered to watch this in a movie theater and man what a great experience that was it was so fun to pay for our tickets and check this movie out on a big screen and the movie was just so good and funny that we had a wonderful time watching it every single time they made a reference to the first despicable me whether it be the cheese racing the bank of evil gru's future house the future car etc i got out of my seat and clapped i probably really disturbed the theater that i watched this in but i don't care man this is pretty much the avengers end game of the despicable me franchise bringing back so many classic beloved characters like dr nefario the bank guy the anti-villainy guy everyone's favorites and they even referenced vector holy [ __ ] my entire theater erupted when that happened it was epic this was simultaneously the most epic movie i've ever seen in my life and bad a bunch of people were telling me going into this that it was actually a pretty decent movie and like no but it's actually not the worst thing ever and it's an improvement over the first minions movie that's because there's a lot less minions in this one and a lot more of the rise of gru and said rise of grew stuff honestly wasn't too bad it's not really anything special but i kind of enjoyed the bond grew formed with wild knuckles i think it was neat to see that he was mentored by this older super villain and that they had this strong connection to the point where gru inherited knuckles house yeah i never thought i'd say this but this is weirdly enough a pretty solid prequel to despicable me in terms of its story it does have some of that solo a star wars story [ __ ] where it explains the origins of a bunch of things you never really needed explains and also it makes no sense that vector was born at this time unless you factor in my vector grim walker theory in which case it's the most brilliant cameo ever bravo vince but aside from some unnecessary [ __ ] i think it's actually kinda sorta neat to get this sufficiently satisfying prequel to a movie i really liked as a kid i can't believe 2010's nostalgia is a thing now but you know what i'll [ __ ] take it over 80s and 90s nostalgia it's not nearly as nauseating so yeah the grew stuff was not bad unfortunately there's like five other subplots in there pretty bad the vicious six had the potential to be super funny what with their creative concepts and designs but man they just have nothing to do in this movie until the ending fight it's such a waste of these characters and the celebrities who voice them also the minions have to rescue gru so they learn kung fu for some reason and this doesn't go anywhere and doesn't really add to the plot and it's a waste of time and also there's this other minion who rides with this biker guy and it's also a waste of time basically everything minion related in this minions movie is bad as per usual but the grew stuff was mildly decent and the climax wasn't half bad either so yeah you know what i didn't hate this movie it's not good but it's the [ __ ] mona lisa when compared to the first minions the funniest thing about it is that you can just watch it without having seen the first minions at all which is hysterical and obviously what i would recommend so if you want to watch it definitely do what i did and check it out in i got bored of the joke candyland is not a real board game play other board games you won't regret it or maybe you will if you don't appreciate our lord and savior vector who's this fraud he had a twin brother all along that's the big twist we were waiting for despicable me 3. this movie is entirely disposable and forgettable and pointless and i forgot everything that happened in it so i guess gru has a twin brother and the twin brother is just gru but annoying it's nice that steve carell dared to ask what if i took my gru voice and tweaked it just enough so it becomes the most obnoxious thing in a movie that features the minions oh by gosh by golly he pulled it off the villain in this one is a child star from the 80s and that's his entire character he makes 80s references and he likes referencing the show he was on as a child at one point he even says it's on like donkey kong which is probably foreshadowing something i don't know maybe i'll maybe i'll figure out what it is later hey speaking of foreshadowing did you know that margot is wearing a grinch shirt at one point in this movie cause it cause they were making the grinch movie and then in the first despicable me movie she had a lorax shirt on at one point because because they were making the lorax movie that's pretty epic anyway the villain has no presence throughout the entire middle chunk of this movie and his supposed rivalry with gru who is so poorly established that it's impossible to care about him he just doesn't do anything outside of the first scene of the movie and the climax instead for most of the movie we're just [ __ ] around at drew's house so the goyers can go on wacky misadventures that are better suited for a despicable me tv show and gru and drew can do [ __ ] shenanigans together until they need to steal a diamond from the 80s boy and then drew can show that he's ridiculously stupid and incompetent and a waste of a character they set up this idea that drew really wants his brother to teach him villainy and it's like okay that could be interesting maybe gru has an internal conflict about missing villainy in his old life and he's torn between drew nudging him back towards the dark side and lucy keeping him towards the light but no that's too interesting gru can't long to be a bad guy again we can't have the main character of a franchise entitled despicable me be interested in villainy anymore so instead gru has no arc outside of reconciling with his brother i guess because they have a liar revealed fight and then three minutes later they have to reconcile since 80s boy took the kids so that's instantly resolved this is such a good movie guys wow i have the time of my life watching these movies rather hilariously the minions add nothing to this film whatsoever they have a subplot where they leave the no longer villainous group which they probably should have done during the second movie based on the lore the minions movie gives us but also who gives a [ __ ] so they go to prison and they realize they liked gru and they go back to him and they contribute nothing in the climax and so they were pointless to the overall story the end i'm so glad we had like six scenes focusing on them that's nice also they froze dr nefario and carbonite because they didn't know what to do with him in this movie that's incredible uh i guess it was kind of sweet to see lucy try and bond with the goya the opening scene was pretty cool and the climax wasn't bad and i liked trey parker's performance as 80s boy and that's about it overall this wasn't the worst thing in the world but it was very much not good and i feel like it added nothing substantial to despicable me as a whole like we got gru with hair who is also very annoying thanks for that don't watch this one it's not good but at least it wasn't as bad as some of the other illumination movies all right time to take a mental health break and talk about something good instead for a little bit like squarespace squarespace is a fantastic intuitive online website builder that allows you to create beautiful websites for your business or personal hobby present your work using squarespace's professional portfolio designs display projects in customizable galleries and add password protected pages to share private works with clients you can even present your videos from youtube vimeo and animoto on your squarespace site add an image overlay to your video to improve your website's load speed by waiting to embed video players until playback starts every design automatically includes a unique mobile presence that matches the overall style of your website so your content will 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series brought to life in the most flat corporate friendly inartistic way possible the rabbit poops at one point and then the cat plays with his poop i don't like these movies but fortunately there were at least a few elements of quality in the first film weirdly enough the score was excellent like i'm watching unfunny pet shenanigans on screen and thinking damn i would unironically put this score on in the background while writing videos i didn't actually though i ended up having too much self-respect to look up the secret life of pets ost on youtube in order to listen to it but yeah you know what good music then i found out alexandra de splatt did the score and i was like oh that makes perfect sense he's a great film composer why did he waste his talents on this movie the other things i liked were some of the characters i thought the jenny slate dog was kind of fun and the albert brooks hawk was also kind of fun and weirdly enough the kevin hart rabbit was really enjoyable i liked how murderous he was and he was also occasionally a bit funny plus i enjoyed the whole concept of this underground cult of abandoned pets in the sewers i like this little montage at the end where all the owners come home to their pets because it's nice to see pets care for and bond with their owners that's not even like a compliment to the movie storytelling that's just the movie lazily activating the part of my brain that goes ha ha pets and owners loving each other go burr but congratulations movie i guess it was still nice whenever i like the scene where the two main characters get high on sausages and have a sausage party it made me really hungry for sausages even though it was like 2 am and i didn't have any sausages so i would have to like drive to a grocery store in order to purchase them and by the time i got back it would be like 3 am and is that really a good time to eat sausages anyway this movie [ __ ] sucks everyone criticizes it for just being toy story again where there's a secret world of beings who love getting affection from humans and then there's a new kid on the block taking affection from this one owner so the old favorite person is jealous and then they get lost together and then they bond and then they like each other so it's toy story but with a far less interesting secret world and no emotional through line the movie doesn't attempt anything emotional until the one hour mark in this one hour 26 minute movie where the new dog mentions that he had an owner that he misses so they go to his house and then find out that he's dead oh no that's sad right no not actually at least not according to this movie because they don't even give the dog any time to process this he just gets angry and then the dog catchers get him and we gotta have an action climax to save him any emotional impact is completely brushed over because that would be stupid if we wanted to be emotional this is a kids movie so we gotta be dumb and stupid and ha ha funny joke with pets and stupid 24 7 with no breaks there's also this worthless subplot where these other pets try and find the two missing dogs you know like like in toy story 2 like in a good movie but ultimately they don't affect anything that happens in the main plot plus they keep picking up characters that don't add anything so jenny slate meets this hawk that's gonna help her find the dog so the hawk finds a evil cat who says that the dog is in the sewers so now jenny slate and the hawk can go find the dog right no actually first they have to enlist five other pets to help for absolutely no reason and then they have to find this old dog to track the other dog down then what the [ __ ] was the point of the hawk wasn't he supposed to track the dog down isn't that what hawks do they track [ __ ] down so now there's eight characters going on this pointless non-adventure when you only needed two if the six extra characters were at least funny and memorable like the toys in toy story 2 then fine but they're not they're just window dressing meant to make you say oh what a cute dogs what a cute tiny green bird that never speaks or does anything funny or anything at all what a great movie also the main two dogs are stupid and not really likable or interesting and yeah can i just be done talking about this one it's not good let's just move on i am the lorfex and i speak for the trees oh the lorax i'm gonna be honest even though this is the fifth worst movie on the list i actually love it a lot more than all of the other illumination movies it definitely has a lot of that sharktail appeal where it's just such a delightfully baffling [ __ ] show that i find myself with an ironic adoration for it another thing that makes it stand out from the pack is the fact that while most illumination movies are simple childish fluff with practically nothing to analyze in terms of why they're bad the lorax isn't like that at all there are so many layers to its awfulness and so much that could be said about it but i kind of feel like the internet has pretty much said it all already yes it hysterically misses the point of the book being a cautionary tale by removing the idea that the once-ler could be anyone and mainly pinning the blame for his actions on his manipulative family egging him on yes it adds an incredibly obnoxious and cliche framing device of a kid being motivated to do something to impress a girl while also adding a lame one-dimensional villain who's not funny or threatening or a good representation of how a regular person can get led astray by capitalism and do irreparable damage to the environment yes the fact that this movie has an unambiguously happy and optimistic ending robs children of the urgency of the original story instilled in them to take care of the planet yes the songs are not bad all things considered yet they pale in comparison to the incredible rock opera ballad biggering which was cut from the movie for being too anti-corporate and it [ __ ] slaps and you should listen to it right now yes the fact that the marketing for the movie insisted that products that were bad for the environment were lorax approved which is a sentiment that within the movie itself is portrayed as a bad and dishonest thing and overall it's a genuinely dystopian concept brought to life by our good friends at illumination every bad thing anyone has ever said about this movie on the internet is absolutely true and at this point is there really anything i can add that hasn't already been said well yeah i just think it's funny not the actual movie itself no nothing in this movie made me laugh unironically not even the great zinger of a lion that's a woman wow wasn't that such a great joke remember when it was in every [ __ ] trailer and commercial for this movie back in 2012 oh they were just so proud of that joke because it was just so good and not shitty let me tell you what a real joke is the lyrics of let it grow how is this real our son wesley kind of glows and that's not good so we suppose we should let it grow oh really oh you're just now realizing that it's not good that your son has been swimming in radioactive waste and that he glows bright green you didn't think that was a problem until you saw that all the trees were chopped down it's almost like it makes absolutely no sense that all the townspeople immediately go from loving their fake plastic wasteland to realizing oh wait we should probably bring the trees back also it's not good that westley is glowing that's it i'd be pretty terrified if my sun was blowing blowing i'd be pretty terrified if my son was glowing bright green for a prolonged period of time but you two summarize this whole situation as being not good who made this stupid ass piece of [ __ ] movie oh yeah yeah right of course i don't even know what else to say at this point i guess the animation is nice and colorful and it holds up pretty well for being 10 years old and danny devito as the lorax is just perfect casting which kind of got wasted since his writing wasn't funny ed helms also does a pretty good job as this hipster version of the once-ler speaking of which i should probably answer the big question that's on everyone's minds do i think the once-ler is sexy i mean yeah look at him honestly i get it i totally understand the appeal i think that's the bottom line with the lorax i'm glad it exists because what other movie could spawn an entire tumblr sexy man craze hysterically miss the point of the book it's adapting in so many different ways create one of the most epic songs in any animated film that it goes on to not use in the final product offer other far less good songs that became a staple of meme culture for a few months each and also have danny devito truly an ironic masterpiece for all time that every man woman and child should see it's pretty awful but also the most epic film ever made so you know you might as well take that for what it's worth wait didn't i already say that minions the rise of gru is the most epic film ever made uh it's a tie sure why not there's still four movies i need to talk about that are worse than this oh my god then what the [ __ ] is stopping us from just throwing ourselves off a bridge and giving up and saying yeah the planet is dying the government hates us the animals are leaving the aliens aren't contacting us we might be alone it just might be you and me but that's okay [Music] minions is a movie with the minions and they do minion things and i i like to eat a banana and they like bananas and then they have to be the minions in order to get it they get they gotta serve the the lady who doesn't like to they just she doesn't like the minions because they do because they do the thing that she wanted them to do but then she didn't want the one minion becomes king and then he doesn't have he give he gives her the crown but then she doesn't like them anymore and then and then she tries to hang them and that was my favorite part of the movie you know i went into this thinking this would be the absolute bottom of the barrel worst illumination movie but wow they sure did prove me wrong it gets worse than this yeah truth be told there were actually a couple things in this movie i surprisingly liked the opening where they accidentally killed all their masters throughout history was pretty funny actually and this is also where the movie peaks in the first five minutes you can shut it off after this scene you're not missing anything okay but also i thought this jovial family of villains that they hitch a ride with to villaincon was pretty funny and i kind of wish the movie was about them instead of boring ass scarlet overkill uh there's also this cool stop-motion sequence in the middle that was kind of neat i like when they're watching the dating game and then stewart's like yeah stuart cause cause stewart's the cool minion and he was my favorite because he's he's cool i genuinely don't know what else i can say about this movie it relentlessly tormented me and i want to die it's blatantly obvious that you can't just make a movie star in tiny blithering incomprehensible tater tots it doesn't work there's no emotional investment or anything it's just a collection of tired annoying gags where [ __ ] just happens randomly with no rhyme or reason and barely any plot structure maybe it could mildly work if the slapstick was fun or creative but it really isn't it's such a dull irritating affair with so many scenes that feel like a complete waste of time and i don't even really have that much to say about it except for this it's still better than cars 2 because at least it knows it's a stupid piece of [ __ ] film for babies and it's just a prequel spin-off that isn't entirely derailing an entire prestigious studio's reputation for all time i have so little to say about minions that i'm just gonna see the rest of my time and use it to rant about cars too some more holy fuckballs how do you make a movie centered around an idiot protagonist where everyone around him is an even bigger idiot yeah you know what that's why minions is better because at least the minions are the stupidest characters in the movie as god intended scarlett and her husband aren't the brightest bulbs but they have more brain cells than finn mcmissile who'd probably mistake a fire hydrant for being a secret agent and don't even get me started on lightning yeah mater you are the bomb [ __ ] all the way off it truly astounds me that if you added minions to the pixar catalog it would still only be the second worst pixar movie thanks to the existence of this travesty but you know what if you like this movie because it's simple dumb fun with funny spy cars i can respect that also if you like the silly funny haha minions movie i can respect that too they're just movie opinions don't take them too seriously you can like any movie that i don't like and it's completely valid to do so you silly head but yeah in my humble opinion that you can totally disagree with minions and cars too both deserve to rot in hell but even though they're both down there minions has the high ground you underestimate my bomb the secret life of pets the second are you excited for this one i'm excited because i hate myself this one is so bad like so agonizingly slow and boring it's only 86 minutes but it feels like it goes on for five hours and it's horrible pacing can probably be attributed to the fact that it consists of three separate storylines that don't connect until the very end in a rather clumsy and awkward way it feels like nothing is happening for the majority of the film because it's unclear which of these storylines is the a plot they all have equal screen time and all hold the same amount of dramatic weight which is to say none at all they feel like pointless direct to dvd misadventures lazily cobbled together into a feature film the kevin hart rabbit is just boring this time since he doesn't want to murder people anymore now he just wants to be a superhero saving this tiger who can't talk even though all the other animals can talk weird but yeah the subplot is just boring and whatever and the rabbit isn't really funny anymore so yeah then there's a subplot where the jenny slate dog has to get a bee toy back from some cats and so she pretends to be a cat and then becomes their queen and this has basically no bearing on the rest of the film the only impact it has is the impact of the car that the cat lady drives when she accidentally runs over the villain from the kevin hart rabbit plot line at the end this was so worth taking up a third of the movie meanwhile the two main character dogs from the last movie are back the brown dog has literally nothing to do at all and the tiny dog is no longer voiced by a sex offender so now he's voiced by ratatouille and they meet the harrison ford dog who teaches tiny dog how to be brave and stuff harrison ford's vocal delivery in this movie is about as enthusiastic as mine is right now i guess it's kind of nice to see tiny dog try and be a good dad to this baby and he learns to be more adventurous or whatever but it's still really not interesting everything about this movie is a waste of time and i couldn't wait for it to be over and i don't even know what else to say about it somebody stop illumination before they kill again that thing's green green mother of mercy i hated the grinch so much i could not stand this disgusting piece of sanitized corporate slop with no ounce of personality or wit or charm whatsoever the animation is literally the only thing worthy of praise in this empty [ __ ] void of quote unquote entertainment it made me long for the days of the jim carrey grinch a movie i really didn't like but at least i felt something watching that at least it was funny bad and had a distinct personality to it illumination's grinch is empty and lifeless completely devoid of anything worth talking about or remembering the only cultural impact this movie had was when it arbitrarily became the poster boy for an infamous fake smash bros leak without that there is no reason anyone would talk about this pathetic excuse for a feature film i feel like most people watching all the illumination films wouldn't rank this as low as i have since compared to some of the obnoxious [ __ ] present in the studio's other work this one is pretty tame and inoffensive but that's just it i say this time and time again but i prefer movies that make me feel intense negative emotions over ones where i feel absolutely nothing at all except cars 2 that's kind of a weird exception to the rule but i digress i truly felt nothing watching the grinch nothing was entertaining and everything was subpar outside of the visuals bananamania cucumber snatch does this incredibly weird voice as the titular character and it really doesn't work i know just what to do what is this [ __ ] i kept picturing someone like pat and oswald in this role and i think it would have turned out a lot better the voice we got comes across as more weird than nasty and mischievous which by the way that's the whole character he's not really villainous at all he's just a mildly grumpy weirdo who never does anything that lives up to the character's reputation the original grinch looked and felt deeply sinister the jim carrey grinch was a [ __ ] menace to society this one uh he eats a pickle without paying for it and he knocks a jar off the shelf whoa watch out we got a bad boy over here they talk all of his incredibly mild meanness up to his backstory of never having a family during christmas time it's so generic and trite and played out and even though his backstory in the jim carrey version was kinda dumb i definitely wouldn't call it generic on top of that his backstory sometimes causes him to do kind things before he's supposed to have his big redemption at the end like in this version he catches a reindeer but then lets it go because its family shows up and he never had a family so he doesn't want to separate them oh no the other grinches would have been like tough [ __ ] and force the reindeer to help only trying to get him back with his family after he has the change of heart at the end by having him do something completely selfless and kind in the middle of the movie you basically destroyed the impact of the ending where he's supposed to do his first truly kind act which may i remind you is the entire point of the story it's like they were afraid to make him too mean or unlikable because they didn't think kids had long enough attentions fans to make it to the end of their bloated filler-coded bastardization of a classic story in order to see that he ends up good at the end i have no idea how this studio made an entire film franchise about super villains and yet they can't even make the grinch nasty or threatening it's really [ __ ] embarrassing what else is there to say uh pharrell williams can't narrate to save his life it could be his head wasn't screwed on just right his voice is so generic and it doesn't fit this story at all there's a subplot about cindy lou who wanting to trap santa that doesn't add anything to the story and mainly just exists to pad out the run time there's a bunch of [ __ ] filler scenes of the grinch preparing to do his heist that aren't fun and don't add anything to the story and mainly just exist to pad out the run time the actual story of the grinch stealing christmas doesn't start until 57 minutes into this 78 minute movie once you take out the credits the credits look like they were made in microsoft powerpoint like seriously what is this font and these backgrounds i i just i can't anymore this is legitimately worthless the 60's short is an infinitely better way to experience the story of the book and the jim carrey grinch is an infinitely better way to experience a hilarious unforgettable bastardization of the book this version has no purpose and added nothing to the story of the grinch or the world as a whole the emptiness of its existence would be hysterical if it wasn't so truly truly sad the best part about all this is that that wasn't even the worst movie well here we are folks the final curtain call the absolute bottom of the barrel worst of the worst illumination movie by a massive landslide is hop as soon as i saw that the opening credits were using the default imovie font i knew i was in for some truly transcendent awfulness the likes of which all the other illumination movies could only dream of aspiring towards and yet even with this harbinger of cringe in place i don't think it fully hits you at first just how bad the hell spawn you're about to consume is when you first start watching this movie you think to yourself oh hey this isn't the worst thing i've ever seen it's just kind of a regular bad movie but then you start to notice some things you notice that the main character bunny is the most unlikable character in the film you notice how the plot is going absolutely nowhere until the last 20 minutes or so you notice the questionable racial implications at play with the villain as well as the fact that he's genuinely more sympathetic and deserving to win than the quote unquote good guys eventually your brain starts to collapse in on itself into a [ __ ] black hole of embarrassment that you feel for everyone involved with the production of this movie you need to stop this when the bunny sat down to ask david hasselhoff for advice with his internal conflict i had to ask myself out loud is this real is this a real movie that i'm actually watching right now or is this a kerprank any minute now justin kerprank is gonna pop up from behind my computer and say psych there's no way actual human beings created a film this abysmal but they did it this was illumination's second movie and their first and only live-action animation hybrid i guess it's nice that they learned from this horrific mistake and never tried to do anything like it again but it's not so nice for me because i still had to sit through it hop is a movie about eb who is a bunny whose dad is the easter bunny and he wants him to take over the easter bunny role but eb does not want to be the successor because he wants to be a drummer so right off the bat you can see that this movie clearly influenced whiplash and succession two pieces of art that pale in comparison to the sheer cinematic masterpiece that they shamelessly ripped off anyway eb escapes to la and meets james marsden and generally ruins his life by being selfish and annoying he trashes the mansion that belongs to james marsden's sister's boss who is the character we never see so i don't even know why this is a plot point he acts like a [ __ ] bag to this little girl who can't sing and then pretends it was james marsden saying that in a ventriloquist act then they uproot the entire pageant and sing i want candy which i think is perhaps the most annoying song ever written you need to stop it uh oh james marsden needs to make sure nobody knows the bunny can talk and he's constantly gotta hide him but then they just go to a diner and the bunny talks to the waiter and she doesn't care that he's a talking bunny so does it matter if people know the bunny can talk or not because it doesn't seem to matter at all that's the cool thing about this movie not only do none of the scenes flow together into a coherent narrative but the scenes also just happen without any consequence whatsoever like i said the boss who owns the mansion isn't in the movie so it doesn't matter that they wrecked his house the girl gets mad at james marsden for embarrassing her in front of everyone at the pageant but then that's forgotten about entirely and seems resolved by the end and then i guess no one gives a [ __ ] that a bunny can talk so who cares about hiding the bunny eb goes to audition for david hasselhoff's talent competition and yes this is a major plot point and the bunny's entire plan for getting famous and he asks david hasselhoff you're not surprised that i'm a talking rabbit and he says my best friends are talking car get it it's it's a reference to a tv show that aired from 1982 to 1986. one that children in the year 2011 when this movie came out would have intimate knowledge of did nobody on the set of knight rider tell david hasselhoff that this show wasn't real david that wasn't a real talking car buddy i think his brains might have gotten fried when he got hit with that blast in the spongebob movie but oh no all is not well in the world of hop 2011 because the three beret ninja rabbits that were sent by eb's dad to track him down are tracking him down for some reason even though eb and his dad are talking bunnies these girls don't talk because i guess that required effort to write dialogue for them eventually eb tricks them by faking his own death and pretending he got boiled alive even though that's clearly just a turkey he then realizes oh no i just remembered that they're probably going to assume james marsden killed me and then kidnap him oh well i'm sure he'll be fine and then he abandons james marsden in the exact scenario i just described plays out what a cool and likable character remember when the sister thought he was a stuffed animal and hugged him and he used that opportunity to sniff her hair what a cool character anyway believe it or not we haven't gotten to my least favorite thing about the movie yet so the easter bunny employs all these chicks to make the eggs at his factory but carlos the literal second in command at the factory feels like after all these years of hard work he deserves to take over the business especially since eb doesn't even want to do it yet for some bizarre reason eb's dad only wants bunnies to be in charge of easter and won't even consider a chick taking over by the way the bunnies have british accents and carlos has a hispanic accent so yeah like i said for some bizarre unexplained reason eb's dad really does not want a chick to be in charge of the factory so carlos decides that he wants to take over by force and seize the means of production for his fellow workers but uh oh that's evil so it's a good thing the good bunnies can fight back against those evil chicks and maintain control in the end and force the chicks to do their bidding what a happy ending okay so uh putting aside any readings you might want to take away from the text on your own time if you just look at what happens in the movie on the baseline surface level carlos literally does nothing wrong until the last 20 minutes i'm serious for two-thirds of this movie he merely tries to imply to eb's dad that he should consider letting a chick take over the business so if the movie wants him to be the antagonist it doesn't work because he does nothing antagonistic there's no reason why he shouldn't be put in charge of the factory and he's trying to make that fact clear peacefully when that doesn't work he takes over by force and it feels warranted because he deserves it more than this stuffy old [ __ ] and his piece of [ __ ] son i was actively cheering when he was trying to kill eb because i don't know how you could watch this movie and not want eb to die a slow painful death literally the only bad things carlos does is trying to kill james marsden like yeah okay he didn't really do anything bad so that's kind of [ __ ] and replacing easter candy with bird food which is just such a dumb thing the movie pulls out of its ass in the final act like they never established that carlos had a problem with children eating candy it reeks of something they just threw in there so the children in the audience could finally have a reason to root against carlos because it's blatantly obvious that he was right the whole time but do you want to know the real kicker the most insane [ __ ] thing about all of this is the fact that at the end with absolutely zero hesitation after eb requests it eb's dad appoints james marsden as the new co-easter bunny wait a minute mr eb's dad i thought only bunnies could be the easter bunny what exactly is the problem with the hispanic chicken who's been your loyal second-in-command for years being in charge of easter what's so different about this mediocre guy with zero qualifications that allows him to take over what's the difference huh what's the difference [ __ ] but yeah james marsden gets to be co-easter bunny just because he really wanted it and he really loves the easter bunny i mean there was also a whole montage where he did some training for it and her cut with carlos also doing similar training for it they both equally wanted it except one was actually qualified for it so yeah what was the difference here mr eb's dad huh okay that's enough complaining about this movie i think it's time i talk about the stuff that i actually liked about it here goes and that's everything i liked about it wow that was a pretty short list essentially this movie is on the exact same level of quality as the live-action smurf movies except without gargamel in them and gargamel was the only good part of those movies so yeah there is nothing of value in this movie whatsoever and it is legitimately one of the worst movies i've ever seen in my life you really have to get on my bad side to be a 1 out of 10 movie but this one absolutely earned it i [ __ ] despise everything about it and i sincerely hope people don't actually watch it every time easter rolls around i can't think of a more fitting end to such an abysmal soul-crushing ranking i'm i'm free i'm free [ __ ] so concludes the current filmography of illumination animation honestly and this might sound a bit shocking to some of you but this wasn't the most painful ranking i've done the sony ranking was way harder for two reasons first because it consisted of 30 plus films instead of just 12. and second because illumination films are less so annoying and more so bland in offensive mush sometimes the blandness really got on my nerves like with secret life of pets 2 and the grinch and there was the occasional annoying piece of [ __ ] like minions or hop but at the end of the day i'm gonna forget about eighty percent of what i watched throughout this entire experience yeah illumination is the worst major animated studio right now since they seem incapable of hitting sony's highs with all of their creative decisions tending to prioritize profit over art but i don't know if i can really be bothered to despise them all that much anymore there was a time when minion oversaturation got me pretty heated over the studio but i think the overwhelming cultural obsession with those little guys has largely subsided and now i can't really be bothered to care about what the studio does times are changing in the realm of american film animation sony is putting out paradigm-shifting bangers and allowing adult animation to stage a comeback dreamworks is starting to experiment with cool new animation styles that are getting people talking disney animation and pixar still occasionally make really good films in spite of the tight deadlines their corporate overlords oppose on them i think animation's in a pretty good spot right now with more and more studios choosing spider versus artistry as their beacon to emulate rather than minions financial success so as long as they're not negatively impacting the output of other studios there's really no reason for me to hold much animosity towards illumination except for one thing watching all these movies i started to notice a pattern that's been brewing ever since 2012. there's this one scene in the lorax where the once-ler makes what at the time seems to be a pretty innocent lame pop culture reference break dancing and wearing bell bottoms and playing the donkey kongs huh that was weird how they referenced donkey kong like that oh well i'm sure it didn't mean anything but then the references just don't stop coming in despicable me 3 the villain says it's on like donkey kong in the secret life of pets there's a turtle shell in the sewer that bounces around and makes video game sound effects in sing one there's a gorilla bouncer named mario in sing two they play a cardi b song where she sings the lyric bout my coins like mario hell all the way back in despicable me 1 vector is clearly playing the wii was that a subtle reference too has it really been in the works for that long oh my god patrick just pointed out that the minions the mascot of this company their only article of clothing is overalls and their name starts with m i don't know maybe these have all been coincidences or maybe they were carefully planted in order to foreshadow the true final boss of all of this often when i do a ranking video for a certain studio that means i'm done with them afterwards i don't need to check out any more dreamworks or sony or bluesky uh still too soon i guess i don't need to see any more animated movies from these studios unless i really want to but this it's not a matter of once it's a matter of necessity i've been a fan of mario my entire life playing his games has shaped my tastes in media so thoroughly and his influence on who i am as a person is boundless his franchise means the world to me and now illumination the creators of minions and hop and the secret life of pets and watergate probably now they have their hands on mario now chris pratt has injected his vocal cords into our favorite red-clad italian plumber there is no way i would miss this movie for the world not because i expect it to be good but because i expect it to be a magnificent [ __ ] show as a reviewer of animated films and a lover of mario games this will truly be the final boss of my life once my review of this blooming monstrosity is at last finished and posted then i will finally rest and watch the sun rise on a grateful universe thank you dear viewer for coming with me on this incredible journey twilight is upon me and soon night must fall so thank you for watching the end is in sight no no no don't die [ __ ] please i'm not dying you idiot also i'm not retiring from youtube or my current content either i was just building up how the mario movie will be like the beginning of the next phase of my life or something i don't know look forward to that review i guess i'll say where i'd rank the movie compared to the other illumination films once i see it that is all goodnight tri-state area [Applause] you

Channel: Schaffrillas Productions

Views: 4,906,292

Keywords: Schaffrillas Productions, Despicable Me, Illumination, The Lorax, Gru, Hop, The Grinch, Sing, The Secret Life of Pets, Minions, The Rise of Gru

Id: dcd8HGRfygU

Length: 57min 29sec (3449 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 11 2022