Every Illumination Movie Ranked 

Fun fact: I passed a physics test by one point in 10th grade. One of the questions I got right was a question on the difference between a vector and a scalar. I remembered the definition of a vector from the "VECTOR! Committing crimes with both direction AND MAGNUTUDE! Oh yeah" quote. I literally passed a test solely because of Vector

Fun story: While watching Sing 2 with my younger cousins, I asked myself "Hey, where's the mouse from the first one?" I laid down on the couch and put my hand slightly under it, at which point I felt a small fuzzy object that I assumed was a cat toy. When I pulled the object out, however, I found that it was indeed not a cat toy but rather the body of a dead mouse. That gave me all the answers I needed to my previous question.

So Hop is their second movie, which means they went from their best movie to their worst movie without any movies in between that's kind of impressive

“The way they talk about sing, you’d think it killed their grandma” This joke is so under appreciated. It was truly beautiful.

I want to point out that Mike sang "My Way" by Paul Anka nearing the end of Sing, which is a song about a man who's recognized that he's dying soon and wants to go out on his own accord. They foreshadowed his death.

Hop being unabashedly pro-racism is one of the funniest sentences I have ever conceived

The Lorax is my favorite movie here. Without it, I never would've thought of: "If the Lorax is armed, the trees cannot be harmed."

40:30 the other grinches would allow the baby reindeer to reunite with its family...by forcing the family to pull the sleigh as well

Hop being unabashedly pro-racism is one of the funniest concepts ever conceived

The Lorax is such a significant part of all fandom history. The fact that people were so desperate to ship the once-ler with someone that they literally split him in two to pair him with himself is something that needs to be reflected upon. We did this, and we need to stop pretending like it didn’t happen.

I’ve always had pretty low standards for films as a kid, and even as an adult. I typically enjoy whatever you put in front of me. But I distinctly remember watching Hop as a kid and realizing for the first time that movies can, in fact, be bad.

00:00 | Intro 01:08 | Despicable Me 06:18 | Sing 2 09:26 | Despicable Me 2 11:54 | Sing 14:32 | Minions: The Rise Of Gru 18:18 | Despicable Me 3 22:59 | The Secret Life Of Pets 27:16 | The Lorax 32:21 | Minions 35:44 | The Secret Life Of Pets 2 37:43 | The Grinch 42:29 | Hop

The Vector grimwalker theory is actually brilliant, because it also explains how Vector is such a perfect specimen, since he is the culmination of hundreds, possibly thousands of failed Vectors

"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!" I can not express how happy I was to hear you say that. Seriously, I feel like by the time 3 came out, the writers completely forgot what the word Despicable meant, and saw this as just another kiddy franchise.

The Grinch has always been one of the most interesting phenomenon with movies for me. Somehow two different people made Grinch movies and then had the exact opposite problem. Ron Howard’s Grinch has a really grimy Whoville and misses the point of the story by having the Whos antagonize The Grinch first, while Jim Carrey just absolutely kills in the title role. Like, legit, my family still watches The Jim Carrey Grinch to this day because of how memorable and iconic he is. Illumination, on the other hand, manages to capture the spirit of Whoville being this wholesome and sweet Christmas town, but has the most milquetoast and uninteresting Grinch they could have made. Like, I seriously don’t know how they managed to make him such a boring character. You’d think the people behind Despicable Me would have at least gotten The Grinch right in making him a total jerk, but he’s not even really mean or cranky. They just make him… some guy, really. There’s nothing memorable about their Grinch movie at all.

It's genuinely fascinating the way I forgot literally every single detail about Despicable Me 3, including its existence, but slowly it all came back to me as its review came on

Gru: Didn't want a fart gun and wanted a dart gun instead Child Gru: Already developed the fart gun technology

about 20:21, it's funny because in spanish the franchise is called "Mi Villano Favorito" which means "my favorite villain" which drives this joke even further lmao

My favorite thing about Sing is that it’s probably the only children’s movie I’ve seen whose theme is “crime=good.”

Schaff, if you are disappointed on how little of a soul sucking experience this ranking was. Remember that we are still waiting for that Artemis Fowl review. This will surely cheer you up.

When I saw El Macho in Despicable Me 2, and they gave him this overly detailed backstory, I said to myself "okay, that's a red herring. No way they're not bad at storytelling that they'd reveal the big bad of mystery in the first minute of the investigation starting." And then they did. I always thought the film could have been more clever if all of the people at the strip mall were retired villains. Like the barber would be "The Eagle" or something. And they all decided to retire after finding new purposes like Gru. And the real villain was the secret agency that was trying to steal all their tech because the guy in charge was a villain himself. The movie had a lot going for it to be good, and then it didn't. It just burned, haaaaard.

The fact that the parents didn’t really care much about their son glowing is actually kinda smart. It shows that they didn’t realize the extent of how bad their situation is. And after the wall was torn down, they’re just starting to realize that “Hey, this might not be as fine as we thought it was.”

The thing that Illumination does consistently well across all their movies is make them good as far as the animation itself goes. Every movie they've made is visually great. It just sucks that the stories themselves tend to be lackluster.

Despicable Me was actually heartwarming, sometimes I forget that because of the saturation of minions in every facet of media and culture.

I love that since moana is in most if the stills schaff takes drom the movie fir his avatar, when he's yelling about something we can just see moana in the foreground with her hair blowing back. I love the implication that for the entirety of the recording process, schaff is just having a one sided conversation/rant at a random child who walked into his lair

Schaffrillas: "More movies like Sing 2 please, Illumination" The Super Mario Movie: "That's A-Me!"

The moment you realize that Schaffrillas’ entire RU-vid channel is just him ranting specifically to Moana

Imagine the kind of universe we'd live in if Illumination chose to put the same amount of heart into the rest of their movies as they did with Despicable Me 1

It's probably been said somewhere here, but... You know... I guess I'll say it too. With Sing 2, the reason why the Bono character changes so quickly is because he realizes when his music is playing, or when he is playing, then his wife is there with him. It was stated in the movie that his wife was the inspiration for all his music. When she died, he completely shut himself off. He never got the chance to realize what ability his music carried until Ash, the Porcupine, played his songs again. It's why we see her standing next to him. She is there in his music. As long as he sings, she lives on.

Ever since Russell Brand’s sexual allegations have come out, it brought me back to Schaffrillas’ rant on Hop, especially on the character of EB. It’s scary how well that rant has aged, and how hard it is to look at EB with Russell Brand’s controversy, especially the part where he sniffs James Marsden’s sister’s hair. I guess it’s definitely going to make Hop’s reputation even worse now.

I'm genuinely surprised that you never talked about how much the first Despicable Me movie's soundtrack SLAPS in every direction and magnitude. It's such an underrated aspect of the movie and is honestly one of the very few that I'd unironically listen to once in a while just because It's that good. Especially the ending song by Robin Thicke out of all people.

I have a memory of Illumination that I'll never forget. When I was younger I went to a big girl scout sleepover event that took place inside a roller rink. Right before we went to sleep, they had us all vote on two movies we could watch. The first one was Inside Out, which is one of my favorite movies. After it was over, I was feeling pretty tired and decided to sleep when they played the second movie. The second movie voted for was Minions. And let me tell you, trying to fall asleep while listening to these yellow little bastards babble, the sound of their obnoxious voice echoing off the speakers and straight into my ears as I try to block off the sound with my pillow until I eventually pass out. Now that, THAT is a special kind of hell I will never forget.

"...Do I think the once-ler is sexy?" If he was still around, that sentence would kill Dr. Seuss instantly

It’s funny how there are two movies where the protagonist is trying to grow a plant and likes a girl named Audrey, and one of them is my favorite movie-musical, and the other one…is Illumination’s The Lorax.

Alternate theory... Vector IS old, it's just that he managed to steal the elixor of life, keeping himself young. The reason this didn't become the "crime of the century" was because he was still new to villainy and wanted to lay low.

I’ll never forget how Hop did a cross promotion with Doodle Jump where you could play as EB if you named yourself “Hop”. Absolutely epic.

I can totally believe that “banananania cucumbersnash” made me laugh more than the whole actual movie

There was a cutout of Vector taped to the fan in my 6th grade classroom. We don’t know how it got there but it just… appeared as far as we know

The sad thing is, The Lorax could've been amazing if they took the themes of Biggering and made them the focus. Hell, they could've STILL included How Bad Can I Be if they just had it chronicle the very start of The Onceler's descent into prideful greed, then had Biggering come in after he's become a mastermind. It probably could've made it one of Illumination's best.

I forgot all about Hop. Nice to know James Marsden's legacy has always involved being partnered with talking anthropomorphic animals

James then: *This will truly be the final boss.* James now: Oh this is surprising good actually.

16:46 that "bravo, Vince" caught me off guard

The fact that Vector only got about 7 minutes of screen time is CRIMINAL! He's easily my favorite character in the movie. That character is actually genius

As a mexican, I firmly believe El Macho to be the most accurate deppiction of a mexican in any animated movie (yes, even coco).

the fact a lot of his vtuber crab images have moana not cropped out give me a hilarious mental image of tamatoa winning against maoi, kidnapping moana and every so often just ranting to her about movies and shes like "oh god i wanna see my family-" "WHY DOESNT HE USE THE DEHYDRATION GUN"

39:51 your sarcasm right here made me fall off my bed

The Lorax movie was such a tragedy that it devolved to a masterpiece of comedy, I love it so much

If I recall correctly, I read that the minions were originally designed to have a more monstrous appearance, but due to budget restrictions (Despicable Me did has a slightly lower budget than most other major films of the year), they made the minions much simpler, with assorted body types, eyes, and hair. Props to Illumination, because this worked, though it unfortunately set the trend of Illumination being able to put very little effort and still turn a profit.

I like how you put meme sound effects to transition between different topics it's always fun to pause it and try to figure out what movie or topic represents the meme

I love how Schaff doesn’t feel anything when watching these movies but he does when he’s talking about them.

This is gonna sound really weird, but my least favorite part of the minions movie was that it totally scrambled their lore. On the disc for Despicable Me 1 was a fun short where gru explains how he and dr. nefario created the minions, which was a great fit; like most of their inventions, the minions are helpful and useful, but also very obviously flawed. It made perfect thematic sense. Now, their lore is a bunch of nonsensical garbage that leads nowhere...

I actually really liked Sing 2, especially going back and realizing that Johnny's journey to learn dance-fight-choreography wasn't stunted by his abilities, but rather his emotionally abusive mentor, and that by changing his mentor to someone who got his confidence back, he surpassed the dick who ruined it. Plus he has a minor panic attack that is displayed well, and Rosita's full blown panic attack over her fear of heights felt real, too. I love Porsha's dumb rich girl schtick, and you know, I mostly love Halsey since she's my bicon, and I agree with you that her change at the end feels abrupt and forced. I mean, she actively bashed on Rosita and acted like she was just being naive, but she really was a bitch like her father. Speaking of, her father is a good villain. CEO who gets away with something as fucked as murder? Sounds about right. He implies that he's done it before. My only real complaint is Meena's arc. Not that it was awful, just the way it was handled. She's a teenage girl who's never been in love, and she's a singer, not an actress. Buster bulldozes through that because he has no choice, he has to fulfill his dreams, but Meena is once again thrown out of her comfort zone, but this time it's worse. In the first movie, it was just her overcoming her stage fright and learning to love her voice over her fear to perform. But Darius is a stuck up jerk, and for Meena, that's just not someone she can even begin to pretend with. Buster says he's fixed the situation by finding the perfect match for her, but he's obviously not. He makes her uncomfortable and it makes me uncomfortable watching him cling to her like he does to sell the act. I think the movie tried to patch this up with her finding and falling in love with Alfonso, and even picturing Darius as Alfonso to save the show, but this makes me uncomfortable too. And awkward when she inadvertently admits this to Alfonso.

4:15 ,, THE ORANGE KNIGHT RISES"

The impact that vector had on me is truly astounding. I'm an engineering student in university and of course, in physics, we learn about vectors and how THEY HAVE DIRECTION AND MAGNITUDE. I literally cannot forget it just because of Despicable Me.

As a latino, when Schaff started to talk about the iffy racial implications of Carlos' mistreatment, I burst out laughing. It was hilarious, honestly But to add another nail on Hop's coffin: The movie gets even worse at the end when EB says he'll be the easter bunny, and his dad is like "But son, what about your dream?" and EB goes something like "I'm still gonna be a drummer. But I'll also be the easter bunny". So the last 80 minutes of my life have been pointless since all EB needed to learn to solve the conflict was the amazing superpower of *time management* and the fact the entire movie wouldn't have happened had he put 2 and 2 together before or even during his conversation with his dad.

Rewatching this made me realize how many illumination movies I watched as a kid, I wasn't even a fan of them my dad just kept bringing me to the theater to watch them until he stopped after pets because I hated it. But I got back at him by making it watch the Mario movie.

34:40 I love this rant XD It should be added to the schaffrillas shorties catalogue

You should rank all Best picture winners of the 21st century. Mostly because I want to know how you feel about Gladiator.

The Lorax could’ve had _such_ a huge impact had they kept the original premise of the book. Biggering is an absolute BANGER that DESERVED to be in the movie. But I guess it hit too close to home and they had to go more comedic for the kids.

Illumination is one of those movie studios that I watch for pure entertainment only. Its a time to let loose, laugh at whacky shenanigans, and have fun. When I don't care so much about the story or characters and just want some chill, this is the studio I turn to. They are the experts in this field.

18:57 This aged well!

as a half Latino I can confirm that el macho is the mexican equilivent of giga chad, thanks for coming to my ted talk

It sucks that they never take full advantage of the whole “villain adopting daughters” thing. I always thought a fun sequel would be like him basically teaching the GORLS how to be super villains, each could have a specific interest (gadgets, strategy, etc) and have one want to be good or a hero or something. But no we gotta have minion shenanigans, pointless romance subplots, and a retconned brother lol

Scraff: illumination only has one good movie A few months later: the mario movie gets released Scraff: oh nevermind them

42:29 disappointment in the game of life

Fun fact: Illumination actually wanted Benedict Cumberbatch to use his natural British accent for the role of the Grinch, but he thought that using a voice like that would make him seem out-of-place compared to the Whos of Whoville, who all use American accents. And of course, rather than sitting him down and explaining to him that the Grinch is _supposed_ to be an outsider who doesn't fit in, and that him being the only one with a different accent would actually fit the story and the character's relation to the Whos of Whoville perfectly... Illumination apparently just went "yUp, mAkEs ToTaL sEnSe" and agreed to him using the somewhat-nasally, American-accented, not-at-all-sinister voice he uses in the final movie.

I love how Despicable Me 3’s ending is actually a huge event in its own universe, but it’s such a ridiculous franchise that no one noticed the Minions even abandoned Gru again.

8:29: Remember when those RU-vid ads kept showing This in the ads for the film? That was a very jarring sight to behold.

I've been OBSESSED with "Biggering" after I've heard it for the first time. An absolute bomb. And while I clearly see why they've decided to replace it, it's still a crime to hide that gem from the public.

Holy shit man, Biggering is actually insane. I can't believe Illumination wrote the perfect song that fit the message perfectly and then CUT IT, because the *CORPERATION* who made it thought that the *ANTI-CORPERATION* song in the *ANTI-CORPERATION* story was too *ANTI-CORPERATION*

I literally met the guy who voiced vector (pls don’t @ me for not remembering his name lmao I’m tired rn) but holy hell it was fun. Apparently he planned on giving Vector a deep, sultry, manly voice (because of how nerdy vector looks, he thought it’d be funny). I love that there is an alternate universe out there where vector has like, a kronk voice lmao

So I was watching an interview with trey Parker about despicable me 3, and he looked like he didn’t want to be there, and the only reason he was doing it was because his daughter liked minions. He hates the minions as much as we do.

Fun fact about Sing: The Giraffe (Daniel) who nearly gets the part before Johnny is voiced by Wes Anderson

Fun Fact: In the original draft for Despicable Me, there were only five minions, each with a different personality. But later, they changed it so there were tons of them that all had the same personality to make it more comedic.

Remember, if the Mario movie beats Despicable Me, it’s because Nintendo’s was keeping a close eagle eye on it

The insane thing about Minions is that the soundtrack is actually FANTASTIC and I have no clue how they got the rights to any of it

It's hysterical to watch the 2022 Schaffrillas foreshadow the Mario movie as some antichrist unholy abomination that was going to mentally annihilate anyone who watched it and then destroy the universe once it was released, and then it came out and he was like "Idk it was ok i guess"

I love to imagine it’s actually Tamatoa ranting about Hop to Moana for a full 20 minutes

Schafrillas saying the word GOILS is singlehandedly more funny than the entirety of illumination's movie catalogue

i love all the illuminations movies AND YOU CAN'T CONVINCE ME OTHERWIIIIIIIISE!

At 44:17, my phone froze but I had it in my pocket with my airpods plugged in so I actually thought he was waiting to see if this was a kerprank

I remember going to see Despicable Me in theaters with my parents, who both dislike modern animated films. We ended up leaving the theater completely blown away with how good it was, which was shocking to me. To make things better, there was a full moon that night, which led to many jokes on the drive home.

I just realised how funny it is that it just looks like Tamatoa is ranting to Moana about how much he hates Illumination movies

14:35 minions the rise of gru baby #minionsweep #bestmovieever #Iwannadie #vronicaimsorry

3:53 I lost my shit with the Vector stuff XD I love your hummor Schaff :3

The amount of terror I felt when we reached the final entry on this list, but still had 15 minutes of the video left, cannot be overstated. I love this.

Honestly, I'm glad Biggering was mentioned in this video because that song fucking slaps and is one of the best villain songs out there. Too bad Illumination realized it was basically calling them out, along with other large corporations. It really would've been the best part of the movie had they kept it in

Now that Despicable Me 4 is official, it makes me love this video a lot more since Despicable Me 1 and The Super Mario Bros Movie are the only good films from this studio in his eyes, and I still love watching him fall apart while talking about all the bad movies. He gives a pretty convincing argument on why you shouldn’t watch Hop, and I’d be foolish not to take him at his word

I like Despicable Me 2, mainly for the fact that it answers the question of what would happen if the minions were to turn evil.

Personally I think Despicable me 3 could've actually been a good movie if Drew was the villain. Maybe Gru taught him how to be a villain, and the two of the, started scheming a whole bunch of evil plans behind Lucy's back. Then, Drew does something truly evil that puts Gru's family in danger, and Gru realizes the reason why he stopped being a villain and fights back against his brother, showing that your biological family isn't necesarilly as good as found family. Gru already has has troubles with his biological mother in the past and this would've been an interesting development of the story. Instead we got cheese, unicorns, 80s references, and a jail scene. whooooo so fun

We need to really appreciate Shaff for this. If we thought the sony ranking was bad this must have been torturous for him. Thank you Shaff for sacrificing your soul to give us entertainment.

When the Secret Life of Pets 2 released, my family, for some reason, went insane. My dad tried to pressure me into watching the film. My mom saw the movie in theaters and spent an hour praising it and considering it the funniest movie ever.

9:22: Well now there’s 3.

Fun fact: Vector from the movie helped me on a physics test. The question was What are the two components of a vector And I immediantly thought of Direction and magnitude instantly from the movie despite not having learned this from the lessons.

I loved it when Gru said, "Minions, it is time for me to rise!" Truly one of the movies of our time.

WHAT?!? 31:06 (same here)

34:23 This is where the cars 2 rant starts btw

So, I worked in the electronics department of Walmart some time ago. Back then (not sure if it's the same now), they played some sort of looping programs which changed every month on the televisions there. For some reason, for a brief period of time they decided to play a movie for the month instead of the typical advertising stuff. -A- movie. A single movie. On loop. Constantly. For a full month. The first movie they chose was The Lorax. What followed can only be described as cruel and unusual punishment. Every day I walked into work, The Lorax would be there. 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, the Lorax nestled itself into the deepest recesses of my mind. Every scene, every song, every frame, was branded into my memory. It haunted my nightmares. I would often find myself unconsciously humming How Bad Can I Be. Even now, almost 10 years later, it haunts me. I live a good Christian life because if Hell exists, I know in my heart what my eternal punishment will be. It will simply be that month, replayed until the end of time. I will never forgive Walmart for this.

Tbh, if they took "Sing", and entirely changed the whole premise of the movie to just be the story of Taron's gorilla character, I'd probably enjoy the movie much more. Out of all the characters and their stories, his was the only one that made me somewhat invested. (and also cause it was surprisingly unexpected, and felt like the least tropey out of all the character stories in the movie) Any time the movie would move to showcase what's happening with other characters, I always went like "Okay, but please go back to the gorilla guy soon".

I love how almost all the top five best is just despicable me