Despicable Me 4 has inched past a previous installment for a major Rotten Tomatoes record. The new animated movie, which stars Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, and Will Ferrell, is the sixth installment in the overall franchise, which also includes two spinoff prequel movies in the Minions subfranchise. The Despicable Me 4 release hit theaters on Wednesday, July 3, just in time for the Fourth of July holiday weekend in the United States, and as of Thursday is projected to earn a 5-day total of roughly $120 million in its opening weekend.

On Rotten Tomatoes, users have been sharing their ratings for Despicable Me 4 as more and more people see it in theaters during its opening week. While it was tied with Despicable Me 2 for some time with an audience score of 89%, at the time of writing the movie has inched past it with a score of 90%. Although this score could still fluctuate as more user reviews are added, it is currently the highest audience score in the entire six-movie franchise.

Why Don’t Critics Agree With Audiences About Despicable Me 4?

The Movie Is The Most Divisive Of The Despicable Me Franchise

Accomplishing this record is no small feat considering the fact that three of the previous Despicable Me movies have all had audience scores ranging between 83% and 89%, leaving a small window for a new installment to reach any higher. It’s also somewhat surprising considering the fact that audiences and critics tend to be more closely aligned in their opinions on the franchise, and this installment features the widest gulf between the groups, considering it has a Rotten critic score of 55%. Below, see a comparison of the critic and audience scores for every movie in the franchise so far:

The nearly 100 Despicable Me 4 reviews from critics tell a very different story from the audience score. Negative reviews have come from a variety of different places, with many critics saying that it lacks the creative energy of the original installments and features a sleepwalking cast and crew. While some audience reviews express similar issues, the majority of them express enjoyment of the franchise’s iconic characters and signature slapstick humor.

However, there is also a chance that the audience score for Despicable Me 4 could dip considerably lower as time goes by. The score is currently calculated from reviews by users who saw the movie within the first few days of its run, which could be a self-selecting audience made up of people whose anticipation for the movie makes them more inclined to enjoy new installments in the popular animated franchise. While that iss a possibility, the franchise’s increasing divide between critics and audiences beginning in the 2020s could indicate that the wide gulf won’t be closing.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes