Across six movies and nearly $5B globally, Illumination’s Despicable Me franchise has settled into a comfortable, all-ages wackiness. You’ve got the ridiculous antics, shrieks, and cartoon violence of the Minions for the kiddies, and stories of redemption and parenting for the adults who might identify more with Gru. Still voiced by Steve Carell with the funny, unidentifiable accent, egg-shaped head, and carrot nose, Gru hasn’t been a supervillain since the first movie. Now a good guy and a family man with a wife and newborn son, Gru’s story sorta comes full circle with Despicable Me 4, and in doing so gives this series a possible end point, but not a lot of laughs.
Gru’s latest misadventure takes him back to his Hogwarts-esque supervillain academy, Lycée Pas Bon, high in the European mountains. There, amongst other baddies from the notorious class of ’85, Gru encounters an old nemesis, Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell), who has an obsession with cockroaches. He’s designed a weapon that can turn anyone into a bug, and the Anti-Villain League, which Gru works for, wants Maxime captured. When everything goes inevitably wonky, Maxime attacks the family, necessitating they be put into Witness Protection with a brand new home in the suburbs and new names, which none of them really ever use.
In this new suburban setting, Despicable Me 4 begins to resemble Pixar’s The Incredibles, with an emphasis on the family rather than superheroics. Gru and his wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig) try unsuccessfully to blend in with their rich, pompous neighbors, causing all sorts of chaos. Meanwhile, Gru can’t seem to get his son, an unfortunate spitting-image of his father, to say “Dada”. There’s also the problem of Poppy (Joey King), the girl next door who blackmails Gru into becoming a supervillain again as part of a dangerous heist.
The Minions are far better as supporting characters in the Despicable Me films than in their solo Minions spinoffs, but even so they are less entertaining here than ever before. A subplot involves a handful of them being zapped with super serum by the AVL, turning them into Fantastic Four-esque super-Minions. Their crime-fighting antics are more like vignettes than part of the whole, and I kept waiting for someone to make a “superhero fatigue” joke because it would’ve been richly deserved. As a distraction for the kiddos, the Minions are better when mixing it up with Gru, his kids, or with one another. A funny recurring gag has one Minion trapped in a vending machine where he becomes the constant victim of snack and soda-based assaults.
Despicable Me has always played up the duality in Gru’s life, father and hero by day, villain by night, even though it hasn’t been true for a while. But with Gru and Lucy’s attempts to fit into their neighborhood, him as a seller of solar panels, and her as the most disastrous hairstylist ever, the double-lives concept is fully-realized and an interesting new path forward. That’s IF there are more sequels, because as a nostalgic final dance number acts as a “who’s who” of Gru’s past foes, it feels like Gru’s story has gone as far as it needs to. Despicable Me 4 adds yet another enemy and a new baby into the mix, but the jokes are the same. Comforting in a weird way, yes, but not much else.
Despicable Me 4 opens in theaters on July 3rd.
