Despicable Me 4 – thoroughly entertaining and silly fun

Gru and the crew are back again for a fourth Despicable Me outing – the sixth, in the case of Gru himself and the Minions – and it is as enjoyably silly as ever.
 
Set nine months after the last film, with the family having been joined by Gru Jnr, danger sets in when Gru helps the Anti-Villain League (AVL) capture a rival from his school days at the Lycée Pas Bon (roughly translated from the French as ‘Not Good High School’), Maxime Le Mal (‘Maxime the Evil’).
 
But when Le Mal escapes, having crossed himself with a cockroach to gain super powers, he vows revenge, and the AVL sends Gru and family to a safe house.
 
As I said, blessedly silly fun and does the ‘peril’ at the end really well. Written by Mike White and Ken Daurio, and directed by Chris Renaud – who also gives voice to Principal Übelschlecht of the Lycée Pas Bon.
 
While it’s a film aimed squarely at children and families, there is also plenty for adults without kids to enjoy – not least in trying to keep track of all the Easter eggs: that’s references to other works, for any non-geeks reading this.
 
Here, we’ve got Incredibles, Men in Black, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bram Stoker’s Dracula – the last one being a particularly geeky one I’m quite proud of spotting – among (I’m sure) many more.
 
As ever, the voice cast is great, the look of it is great and the humour descends delightfully into the realms of the juvenile. Though it’s interesting that the team are finding new way of doing this instead of just concentrating on laughing about farts.
 
It also manages a really funny and unexpected take on the Minions’ usual ‘banana!’ schtick.
 
I was going to say that there’s nothing subtle about this, but the Easter eggs are. Otherwise, just great fun and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's off to fairytale land we go

Been there!

Once upon a time, after wandering around a medieval town for several days, someone thought that it would be a good idea to binge on fairytale films.

Easter, of course, offered the perfect opportunity to indulge, so a list was prepared, cushions plumped and the cupboard checked for appropriate amounts of nettle tisane.

In the event, the list was overtaken at the start by the discovery that Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) was on the telly.

Fascinated by the idea of updating fairy and folk tales – or to be more specific, allowing them a space in which to continue evolving – this seemed like a perfect place to begin.

In the event, that perfection was in illustrating how to get things wrong.

A US-German collaboration, written and directed by Norwegian Tommy Wirkola, it brought together creative talent from those countries, plus the UK, Netherlands, Sweden, Iceland, Poland, New Zealand, Canada, Finland and more.

The idea of the children growing up and becoming witch hunters is fine – and full of potential. It might be over egging the pudding a bit to make the adult Hansel a diabetic as a result of the witch’s attempts to fatten him for the oven, but we can let that slide.

Tarantino. Without the laughs.

However, it’s all over the place in terms of any sense of time and place. Poor old Augsburg is a specifically-named location in the story – presumably because it’s nicely medieval – which is then screwed all over by a sort of semi-steampunk aesthetic that’s at least a century too late (and I like steampunk). 

The director apparently thought the weapons should look as though H&G had made them. They don’t. Black leather dusters are seriously cool – but out of place here.

Fairy tales can be seriously dark and violent – I am entirely happy with both – but this uses violence gratuitously and in a way that makes you think it’s actually trying to be a Tarantino film. Without any of the wit.

There are other irritants.

The international nature of the cast is fine – but then why have Brit actor Gemma Arterton, who plays the adult Gretel, using a faux American accent?

And – oh god – the constant pronunciation of Hansel with a long, American ‘A’, grated almost to the point of a foot going through the telly.

I was close to shouting about ‘cultural appropriation!’ – and that’s something I consider to be a bonkers idea, since it assumes cultures come in locked geographic/ethnic pigeon holes that have never mixed and informed each other (until now) and never should.

So, just to be clear, I hated it.

Still, if you never experience dross occasionally, how can you judge quality?

Anyway, next up was The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, a 1962 MGM affair, filmed in Rothenburg ob der Tauber itself (and with a glance at Neuschwanstein), so enabling a spot of ‘been there!’ film tourism.

Brothers Grimm – with Rothenburg and skewed perspective

It’s a pleasant enough film about the brothers – and interestingly, the four tales that were included were not the most famous ones – but it suffers from having been filmed in Cinerama, which turns the television screen into a sort of triptych, warping some of the perspective.

In contrast to Hansel and Gretel, the international cast is allowed to use whatever accents they’re used to: that the brothers (Lawrence Harvey and Karlheinz Böhm) speak in received English and with a German accent is not remotely problematic.

Not sensational, but worth seeing nonetheless.

Next up was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - a film I haven’t sat down to watch from A to Z for donkey’s years, and one that was, to be perfectly honest, rather shoehorned into this selection because its locations included, err, Neuschwanstein and Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

But actually, given the lack of any real character development of authot Ian Fleming, it works rather well as a fairy tale, since these are full, after all, of types, rather than 3D characters.

That’s not to say I don’t like it – in fact, a proper viewing restored my pleasure in it and reminded me that the dire matteing on the flying sequences should not be allowed to overshadow what is, by and large, a delightful film.

Gert Fröbe, Lionel Jefferies and mad scientists (inc Max Wall)

This is another international cast, but thankfully, Dick van Dyke was not, on this occasion, told to try any accent but his own. And it doesn’t matter that he has a soft American burr, while the rest of his family have pretty cut-glass accents.

Gert Fröbe is wonderful as Baron Bombast, James Robertson Justice is, well, James Robertson Justice (his real-life story would probably astonish you – look it up), Robert Helpmann is fabulously creepy as the Childcatcher, Lionel Jefferies is a super Grandpa and Benny Hill illustrates the point that comics can turn in serious performances.

And so what could possibly follow that?

Well, one of the things I’d been tempted into getting was 2014’s Maleficent - although I’d also been tempted to buy Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters on the grounds that it looked a really interesting take on the story, as recorded by the Grimms.

I put it off for a few days after the H&G experience, but eventually decided that it had to be watched.

And I’m very glad I did. It’s a fascinating take on Sleeping Beauty – so much so that there is a great deal of material around involving really very serious discussion of its themes.

Angelina Jolie – and a raven!

When the fairy Maleficent has her wings cut off, it can be viewed as a metaphor for rape – the writer and star, Angelina Jolie, certainly thought so, so it’s not just a viewer’s interpretation.

But the problems begin if you start reading the rest of it too literally from that point. I saw one writer complaining that, while the rape metaphor was clear, the subsequent story made it appear that the only way for a female rape victim to recover was by enacting revenge.

It’s fine to make the comparison, but this is also a fairy/folk tale – and indeed, such a reading of the film rather simplifies what actually does happen and how the characters develop.

And if you want to look for themes in it, then one of the others is the question of a nature-based world v an imperialistic/capitalistic one. This was certainly something that occurred to me when watching it (and it’s not a unique observation), but if you try to take it too far, then you’d do your head in.

It’s sumptuous to look at – the CGI works so well; conjuring worlds, but never detracting from the human.

Jolie is really in fine form – it’s a cracking performance. And she turns in a perfectly comfortable non-American accent (a tad softer than as that other very modern fairy tale character, Lara Croft).

Actually, accents are an interesting point here – we have a mixture between English and Scottish in an international cast. And no, it’s not one that comes down on simple good v bad lines. But directing actors to use specific accents here makes a kind of consistent sense, whereas the issue in H&G does not.

German vultures. No, seriously.

After that, I happened upon Channel 5 showing Disney’s iconic 1937 Snow White, which I haven’t seen in absolutely decades (it was one of the first films I ever saw, on a cinema re-release).

The plot is maintained pretty straightforwardly from the Grimms – one of the major changes is in giving the dwarves names and personalities; the character drawing is better than the late ’70s era Disney and the backgrounds are beautiful and delicate, while the witch is still, I’m sure, terrifying for young children.

The only thing I found myself muttering about was the presence of two vultures: there are no vultures in Germany – and it grates a tad. 

Mind, crows or ravens don’t have yellow legs and beaks either – well, not in Europe, at any rate.

But it remains a standard of the fairy tale film genre and formed a perfect addition to the list I had set out to consider.

There are still two definite films to come from that original list but for the time being, that’s a good chunk of fairytale viewing under my belt.

In search of the world of the Brothers Grimm

The iconic Plönlein

The tour party flowed into the town square, streaming past their guide, leaving him standing rather lamely on the cobbles holding aloft a little paddle so they wouldn’t get lost; a 21st-century pied piper whose tune had – temporarily at least – lost its power.

There would be little time to see much. If they were quick, they’d be able to snap off a couple of selfies on Plönlein, where the road splits in two and exits the old city through different gates, and in the square itself, where the Rathaus stands on one long side and two large, half-timbered buildings make a perfect medieval corner.

It is doubtful that they would be able to make it into the Jakobskirche to see the wondrous wooden altarpiece by Germany’s Michelangelo, but there would doubtless be the opportunity to nip into one of the town’s many Käthe Wohlfahrt shops to pick up some extremely overpriced Christmas decorations as a souvenir as an arranged part of their trip, before heading back to the coach and the next stop on their whistlestop tour of Germany or Europe ...

Market place – Rathaus to the right

Such tourists bemuse me: it’s the same as with people in galleries, taking selfies in front of famous paintings – what do they honestly get out of it?

There may be a reason that Plönlein comes up as the main result in a Google image search for Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

You could be forgiven for imagining that it was the main (if not only) medieval vista in the old city. But to find some of the others, you have to scroll down further on that search – and you need to spend longer in the city itself than a coach visit will allow.

US travel writer Rick Steves has noted that, while millions visit Rothenburg, far, far fewer spend even a single night in the city.

For those who do, the benefits are obvious: whatever time of the year, after the tour guides pipe their charges back aboard buses, the city is yours as the sun falls.

Steves says that, after dark, you can almost feel the past. I beg to differ, but only ever so slightly: there were moments in the daytime when the centuries seemed to spin past, leaving me almost dizzy with a sense of times long gone.

Markusturm – complete with storks' next

Rothenburg ob der Tauber – there are other Rothenburgs, so its relationship to the river Tauber is important – is somewhat on the old side.

A prosperous, independent city state, it was besieged during first the Peasants’ War and then the Thirty Years’ War, before a subsequent burst of the Black Death effectively halted its development, leaving us with the most perfectly intact medieval city anywhere.

‘Rediscovered’ in the 19th century and, in the 1930s, it was raised by the Nazis to a semi-religious level as a perfect, idealised German town.

In 1945, bombing did much damage, but it was spared worse when the German commander defied Hitler’s orders and accepted a US army promise that surrender would spare the city.

It is one stop on Germany’s Romantic Road, a 350km route through the forests and mountains of Baden-Würtemburg and Bavaria.

Starting in Würzburg, it ends in Füssen, where we spent a few pleasant days last March, walking in the Alps and visiting Ludwig II’s Neuschwanstein – a visit that had led directly to this one.

Old bridge

We left London early on a Thursday evening, and spent the night comfortably in a hotel at Stuttgart airport before setting off the following morning by train – first to central Stuttgart and then, from there, to Bavaria and Rothenburg ob der Tauber itself, via three trains.

Our hotel was in the centre of the old city, just above an ancient gate leading to a park and, after unpacking as rapidly as possible, we set off for a first orientation.

It’s impossible not to be instantly struck by the city. Plönlein actually feels rather understated in medieval terms, such are the other sights to be encountered, but in general, this is like walking through a fairy tale.

Hardly surprising, indeed, that MGM’s Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm was filmed here in 1961, while the village scenes in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang were also shot in its streets.

A view from the city walls

The latter, incidentally, also saw filming at Neuschwanstein, adding another sense of continuum to this trip.

If Neuschwanstein gave Disney the template for its castle, then Rothenburg gave Hollywood as a whole an architectural aesthetic for fairy tales.

The half-timbered, slanting, sloping, tiled buildings are what you expect. You’ve seen it all before before – on a small or a big screen – but wandering around, you have to keep reminding yourself that this is no theme park, but a real, living town, full of real, living people.

The Markusturm is one of the city’s gates, surrounded by half-timbered buildings in bright colours. Perched atop an adjoining roof is what looks to be a metal wheel, lying horizontally.

Burgator, leading from the garden to the city

In fact, it’s a frame for a stork’s nest: these huge birds have returned to the area in recent years and a couple of days before our arrival, a pair had just returned from their winter sojourn to Africa, triggering excitement among local people.

The previous year, “Mr and Mrs Stork” had produced four chicks, to the evident delight of the community. Another nest, opposite our hotel room, was still awaiting birds when we departed, but the sight of the birds taking off and returning to their nest at the Markusturm could only add to the magical sense of the place.

Anyway, after that initial stroll into the past, our first night’s repast in Rothenburg saw us dine at an old tavern, filled with local people and with a waitress dressed in a dirndl, serving properly hearty German food.

For me, that was a piece of pork shoulder, flaking off the bone and accompanied by red cabbage, gravy and potato dumplings, with a dunkel (dark beer) on the side.

And then we slept in the peace of our centuries-old hotel, dreaming the dreams of fairytales all around us.

Castle in the air – an eccentric's Wagnerian legacy

Neuschwanstein

Monday dawned, but not particularly bright or fair. The cloud, although showing the vaguest signs of an inclination to shift, was nonetheless clinging to the tops of the ridges that stand between Füssen, the mountains and the castles.

But we had made our plans and, after breakfast, headed to catch a bus that would take us the short distance to Schloss Hohenschwangau.

This castle – the name translates as High Swan County Palace – was built between 1833 and 1837, although additions were made until 1855 on the orders of Maximillian II of Bavaria.

He had come across the site while walking. It bore the ruins of a fort that was first mentioned in 12th-century records, and had been built by a family of knights.

Indeed, the king’s family traced it’s own roots back seven centuries in the area, so the appeal was obvious.

The Other Half at Hohenschwangau

And there it was that Maximillian and his Prussian wife, Marie, spent summers with their two sons, Ludwig and Otto.

Marie, in trend-setting mode, used to enjoy mountaineering: when I asked, our guide explained that, while she’d wear a long skirt as normal on top, she’d have “a man’s pantaloons underneath”.

But as our guide – a large man with a bullet head and garbed in a long, loden overcoat – acknowledged with a wry comment, this was not a case of happy families.

Many tour guides are not scintillating, but good ones are a joy. This one was in the latter category.

When the group we were included in was assembled in the first room, he informed us, in excellent English but with a German accent, that “all the contents of the rooms are genuine antiques. So please do not touch – everything is poisoned”.

Hohenschwangau to Neuschwanstein

It was glorious looking around at other visitors to see how much they ‘got’ this very dry German humour. Some confusion was evident.

But if you want further evidence of the dysfunctionality in the royal family, then it’s worth noting that, in later years, Ludwig referred to his mother as “my predecessor’s consort”. Which doesn’t say much for his attitude toward his father either.

Maximillian died in 1864, leaving Ludwig the Bavarian throne. Four years later, his grandfather Ludwig I died, leaving him the sort of money that made his castle-building aspirations possible.

Like Hohenschwangau, Neuschwanstein stands on the site of old remains – in this case, of twin medieval forts.

Begun in 1869, it was never completed, although Ludwig was able to move into it for a short time.

The Alpensee

But in 1886, in response to the concerns of ministers – not least at his almost total lack of interest in matters of state – he was classed as insane by doctors, and confined.

Within days, Ludwig was dead in mysterious circumstances, found in the shallow waters at the edge of a nearby lake, but with no water in his lungs according to the autopsy, and with rumours abounding of his having been shot trying to escape.

Neuschwanstein

With his younger brother Otto also declared insane and, from 1883, confined under medical supervision until his death in 1916, Bavaria was ruled by their uncle Luitpold as prince regent from 1886-1912.

Our guide suggested that Ludwig was not really “mad”, but that “today he would have been called eccentric.”

Later, he observed: “he was born either 200 years too late or 100 years too early”, which might have been a reference to Ludwig’s sexuality.

The king’s diaries make it clear that he struggled with his homosexuality, trying to abide by the teachings of the church. He broke of an engagement and “spent his time building castles instead”.

Inner courtyard, Neuschwanstein

Whatever the reality, the rumours, mysteries and myths surrounding the castles – and Neuschwanstein in particular – only add to their allure.

The new castle was originally called New Hohenschwangau Castle by Ludwig – only after his death was it renamed Neuschwanstein.

Seeing Hohenschwangau, with its murals of German mythological tales, it’s not difficult to get a sense of the background to Ludwig’s obsession with that mythological past.

But it’s also impossible, standing at Hohenschwangau and looking up at Neuschwanstein, towering above; bigger – much bigger – and higher than his father’s castle, not to see it as a statement of a son to his dead father, and very obviously a statement of dysfunctionality.

The phallic nature of the towers take on even greater meaning when viewed from such a perspective.

Starting back to Füssen

Of course it’s more complex than that: in part, Neuschwanstein was a homage to Wagner, whose operas Ludwig adored.

At one of his others castles, Linderhof, he had a ‘Venus Grotto’ built in the park so that he could be rowed about in a golden swan boat as though in the composer’s Tannhäuser, while there was a ‘Hundling’s Hut’ in the grounds too, inspired by the first act of Die Walküre.

Wagner visited the king at Hohenschwangau – I wonder if that piano that he had played really was poisoned? Oh, how to reach out and just touch it – but as our guide explained, he never stayed in the bedroom next to that of the king, because Ludwig never liked anyone staying that close to his own quarters.

However, one notable guest at the castle who did sleep in the bed we were looking at was Hans Christian Anderson, who was a guest during Maximilian’s life and who was probably, our guide mused, inspired to write the Princess and the Pea by the rather lumpy-looking mattress.

Castles, mountains, trees and a lake

Yes, there really are fairytale connections to these castles.

The nature of the ticketing at the castles means that you have a set time in Hohenschwangau and then, a 50-minute gap in which to walk up the hill to Neuschwanstein.

That sounds plenty – but only if you don’t leave the first castle, amble down to the Alpensee behind it, stopping to get excited about seeing a red squirrel, tufty ears and all, in it’s black winter coat, then sit by the lake for a while musing on the beauty of it, only to find that the hill to Neuschwanstein is very steep and you aren’t going to make it in time.

Not swimming weather

That said, the outside is really what I wanted to see – and it is awesome. You might be used to seeing pictures of it or remember it from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but nothing can prepare you for standing next to it.

With Tegelberg soaring up behind, and the Pöllat river tumbling down a waterfall and into the gorge between, it could scarcely be a more dramatic setting.

Somehow – perhaps because I had no expectations of finding it peaceful – even the crowds of tour groups, decanted from coaches below, couldn’t dampen the awe I felt. In the height of summer, the castle can see 6,000 visitors pass through each day.

I was impressed when a young girl nearby suddenly said to her parents: “It’s Cinderella’s castle!” Good visual recognition, that – and also a good indicator of how much Disney has been inspired by Neuschwanstein.

Into the woods

After spending some time outside the castle and in the inner courtyard, we took the easy option of sitting in a horse-drawn trap to make the descent.

A quick, late lunch of bratwurst in a roll, eaten standing, followed, and a visit to one of the souvenir shops that now sit next to the carparks and eateries below Hohenschwangau, and then we set off back toward Füssen.

Moving off, the sun finally started to break through and the clouds dissolved into delicate ribbons across the revealed mountains. The views were simply breathtaking.

The plan was to walk – Google maps seemed to suggest that there was an easy path around the base of one of the wooded ridges, which would bring us out alongside the Lech on the opposite side to the town.

Lesson number one: don’t trust Google maps when planning a walk.

Sunset looking toward Austria

To start with, they have no contour lines so give no indication of whether or not you’re climbing, and it’s almost impossible to judge distance while looking at a map on a phone.

In future, we’ll get the old-fashioned folded paper sort for planning any such walk.

In the event, the first part of the walk was occupied with turning around regularly to soak up the views.

But then we headed into the woods and started climbing. And went on climbing. And then climbed some more. And, just as we thought we must be as high as we’d be going, we’d find that the path was continuing in an upwardly direction.

At long last we rounded the hill and emerged pretty high above the Lech, getting down to road level in time to see a glorious sunset as we looked back up the river toward Austria. It was some compensation for screaming feet.

A sauna and schnitzel followed. But I don’t think that anything will make me forget that landscape of castles, forest, mountains and lakes revealing itself as the day passed.

Awe-inspiring would be a gross understatement.