As somebody who has to watch a lot of films “for work,” films are sort of a big deal in my house. Most of the movies I see every week are not suitable for my 7-year-old daughter, but when a film comes along that she can see, I will occasionally make her my plus one at a press screening. She likes going to the theater with Dad, though mostly I think she likes eating popcorn. Her trips to the cinema are usually months apart, but recently she got to see two projects on the 2024 movie schedule, Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4, within just a couple of days of each other, and her reactions to the two films surprised me.
There’s a conventional wisdom that “kids movies,” frequently anything that’s animated, don’t need to be good. The idea is that children are not a discerning audience, that they can’t tell the difference between a good movie and a bad one. So it doesn’t matter if it is good or bad. I’m here to tell you, that’s not the case.
My 7-Year-Old's Reviews Of Inside Out 2 And Despicable Me 4 Are On Point
Previously, I would have said that Cable (as I’ll call her here), doesn’t have the most discerning taste in media. While her screen time is pretty limited, when I am willing to turn on the TV, she usually wants to rewatch episodes of Dino Ranch she’s already seen rather than watch a movie that Dad recommends. It’s been a point of frustration for me.
But Cable loves going to the theater, and she’ll watch anything if that’s where she gets to see it. She got to see Despicable Me 4 before any of her friends when she joined me at a press screening earlier this week. I was assigned to write the Despicable Me 4 review for the site, so I brought her along.
As my review makes clear, I didn’t like it very much. However, my daughter laughed throughout more than I did. So, when I asked her on the drive home which of the two she liked better, I was not prepared for her response. She told me she liked Inside Out 2 better because…
In [Inside Out 2] they learn things, but in [Despicable Me 4] they just fight a bad guy.
Don’t look now, but my 7-year-old kid already has a basic understanding of what a character arc is. It’s a 7-year-old interpretation of the concept, so she can’t really explain it any more than this, but she gets it. She sees that in one movie characters have experiences that change their perspectives, and in the other, they don’t. Not only does she see it, but she understands that it makes for a better story when characters learn.
And, I mean, she’s not wrong. Inside Out 2 sees multiple characters grow and change throughout the story. Anxiety learns that her attempts to help Riley are actually causing her problems. Riley herself begins to learn how to control her emotions, rather than letting them control her.
Meanwhile Despicable Me 4 is kind of a mess. It ends with the hero fighting a bad guy, but the movie feels like it’s made up of four different disconnected plots. In a later conversation, Cable remarked that it was weird that some of the Minions got superpowers, but that the new Mega Minions didn’t factor into the rest of it.
All around, her thoughts on both movies were totally understandable and relatable.
Kids Understand More Than You Might Think
I didn’t have any influence on this perspective that I’m aware of. I’ve never had a conversation with Cable about the importance of character arcs or described what they are. I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t think she would have understood such a discussion if I had tried to have it. Shows what I know.
There’s a lot that kids don’t understand. Some movies are geared more toward kids and those projects, whatever their medium, often have simpler stories because there is a point at which complexity makes a story inaccessible to young viewers. However, that doesn’t mean we can just give children anything when it comes to media.
This single example shows that even at a young age kids are capable of not simply following the plot, but they can see behind that plot. Cable didn't just understand what the films were about on a surface level, but what the story was really saying, what all of it really meant.
Kids can watch great films and bad ones too. Adults certainly watch our share of movies or TV that we may know aren't great and still enjoy it. There's nothing wrong with that when it comes to kids. But we should at least be conscious of the choices we make, and that we let kids make, because it matters.
“Kids Movies” Are Not Disposable
Cable didn’t dislike Despicable Me 4. She didn’t think it was bad. I'm pretty sure she's never seen a film she didn't like. She laughed a lot, probably more than she did in Inside Out 2. Some kids will probably like Despicable Me 4 more than Inside Out 2 simply because they laughed more. That’s fine. Movies are art and art is still largely subjective.
Despicable Me 4 opening weekend at the box office looks promising, and considering that most of the movies in the franchise have made a billion dollars or close to it, the new one could very easily compete with Inside Out 2’s box office success. While the box office numbers may end up looking similar, the critical response has been quite different as many critics love Inside Out 2 and do not like Despicable Me 4 at all.
If the box office numbers end up anywhere close to comparable, then there’s a good chance that studios, who always seem to learn the wrong lesson from everything, will take it to mean that quality isn’t important. If a flick that critics think is “bad” makes as much as one they think is “good” then who cares if it’s good?
We should all care. Just because most kids like every movie they see doesn’t mean that they don’t appreciate the differences. They may not always be able to articulate their feelings but that doesn’t mean they don’t have them.
