Despicable Me 3

Hollywood loves a good established property – something with characters or a storyline that viewers are already familiar with and eager to see on the big screen. Something with a built-in audience is a far easier sell in Tinseltown than something new you have to explain and convince people to see. So you know – things like Shakespeare, the Bible, Sherlock Holmes, and other classics like Freddy, Jason, Shaft, Indiana Jones, and, of course, Gru and the Minions. This month saw the release of Despicable Me 3, the fourth iteration of Illumination Studios’s money maker if you count the Minions spin-off movie from  2015.

Sequels, prequels, threequels – they all usually share some of the same DNA. New characters, often in the form of spouses, children, or sidekids; more complicated plots and subplots; a spotlight for the standout characters from previous versions; and often an overall dilution of effect. There’s usually more of everything except quality. Regarding Despicable Me 3, check, check, and check.

This time around, we see former super villain, Gru, voiced by Steve Carrel, failing to capture his stuck-in-the-80s nemesis, Balthazar Brat voiced by South Park’s Trey Parker. Gru gets fired from the Anti-Villain League and experiences a mid-life, or perhaps mid-franchise crisis. Meanwhile, his Minions, those sentient little Hostess Twinkie creatures, walk out on him because he refuses to return to villainy, and his new wife, Agent Lucy, struggles with being a step-mom to Gru’s three adopted daughters. Oh, and one of those daughters gets her own subplot about hunting down a pet unicorn. Oh, and his long, lost twin brother, Dru, also shows up to reunite with him and let him know that the father Gru never knew was also a super villain. Oh, and Dru wants Gru to rejoin the old family business. 

 There’s plenty going on, for sure, but none of it is particularly developed. There’s a certain laziness to the writing and characters, and moments aren’t really given a chance to land and settle in. There’s lots of complication but not a lot of depth. For instance, in her efforts to be a tough mom, Lucy accidentally gets her oldest step-daughter engaged to a boy on the Mediterrean island they’re visiting. It involves dancing and eating cheese. (Don’t worry, it doesn’t make a ton of sense in the movie either.) Anyway, Lucy breaks the engagement in about two sentences and her formerly resentful step daughter suddenly loves her. Not a ton of explanation or earning it. It’s basically the writers looking out at us, shrugging, and saying, “You know what we mean though, right?”

It may seem it’s asking a lot to expect fleshed out characters and a developed storyline from a kids’ cartoon, but it’s really not. It’s just that Illumination Entertainment projects don’t really specialize in depth or development. It’s as though they realize they can’t compete with Disney Pixar, so they just don’t really try.

What Despicable Me 3 does excel in, however, is physical comedy. There are numerous sequences that made me laugh out loud strictly from the visuals. Gru and Dru infiltrating the villain’s lair in skin-tight super suits as well as the dance fights between Gru and Balthazar Brat are standouts in particular. It’s banana peel humor, for sure, but what’s wrong with that.

If Disney Pixar is Charlie Chaplin with all longing and pathos along with the humor, then Illumination Entertainment is Buster Keaton, the brazen physical comedy clown embracing the pratfall with gusto.

So this is not a terribly enthusiastic review of Despicable Me 3. It feels more like a glorified tv movie than a summer tent pole. It will make you laugh, but you’ll forget it pretty quickly once it’s over. But it’s pretty much a guarantee that if enough of us go see familiar old Gru and and gang, we can count on a Despicable Me 4 in just a couple of years.