Jonah Naplan   July 7, 2024

I have just changed into a more comfortable outfit. My friends and I dressed up in suits to go see “Despicable Me 4” tonight, as per the recent trend floating around social media, but the only problem is that it’s July, so such attire is not exactly suitable for the Arizona climate. Point is, there’s certain lengths we’ll go to in order to honor the new cinematic phenomenon, and it matters much less about what that movie actually is, and far more about what we can do to be a part of it, whether that’s dressing up in suits to a less-than-prestigious movie (“Minions: The Rise of Gru” from 2022 was another hit along those same lines), completing a smashing double feature with “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” or braving a pandemic to journey out to the theater to figure out what the heck this new movie called “Tenet” is.

To that end, I must speak the truth: There’s probably a much better movie than “Despicable Me 4” to deserve this kind of attention, but it’s also not the worst one to receive it, either. For the most part, this third sequel is a mixed bag of wacky jokes, one-liners and sight gags (we’re talking hundreds), integrated between thin strands of “plot.” I put the word in quotation marks because the movie doesn’t really have a “plot” in a traditional sense; mainly the film is just a series of barely-there narrative lines used to propel the story forward from one silly scenario to the next. It’s fine for a little while, but eventually it becomes tiring, especially as the movie starts to lose steam in a third act that’s underwhelming in a way none of the other franchise entries would ever have allowed.

The villain this time around, not unlike Balthazar Bratt from “Despicable Me 3,” is a pathetic whiner living in the woes of the past. Maxime Le Mal (the nearly unrecognizable voice of Will Ferrell) has had a grudge against Gru (Steve Carell) since the latter outshined him in a school talent show decades ago. And then Gru humiliated him again at an alumni reunion years later, sending him to supervillain jail after Max transformed himself into a sort of genetically manufactured cockroach humanoid able to communicate with other socially intelligent cockroaches (sure, why not?). Gru, meanwhile, is living the ideal suburban life with his wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig), daughters Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier), and Agnes (Madison Polan), and new baby Gru, Jr. who feels no affection for his father whatsoever; part of the movie will be a parable about Gru attempting to connect with his new child while trying not to completely lose his cool.

When Max breaks out of prison, reteaming with his girlfriend Valentina (Sofia Vergara), he vows to get revenge on Gru by scheming to kidnap the baby, ushering Gru et al. into a secure but unremarkable safehouse in a resplendent city called Mayflower, while the lovable Minions (all voiced by Pierre Coffin) are dispatched on their own adventure with the Anti-Villain League and its head honcho Silas Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan). The family have all been outfitted with new codenames and occupations, a facade that quickly proves to be difficult to keep up. Shenanigans ensue. Gru is a solar panel salesman named Chet Cunningham whose awkward interactions with his rich new neighbors Perry and Patsy Prescott (played by Stephen Colbert and Chloe Fineman, respectively) drive home one of the movie’s central jokes about how Gru tends to make situations weirder than they ever needed to be just because of his poor impulse control, while Lucy is name-changed to Blanche and acts as an elite hairdresser (the fact that her skills are inadequate in reality sets up an obvious, albeit amusing, conundrum when a preppie client sits down at her salon).

The family’s cover is almost blown entirely by the Prescotts’ daughter Poppy (Joey King), who can see through the lies and threatens to reveal all their real identities unless Gru teaches her how to become a supervillain, introducing a scheme to steal the beloved mascot from Gru’s alma mater Lycée Pas Bon (it’s essentially Hogwarts but for bad guys). Concurrently, the Minions have become the test subjects at AVL for a new serum that supposedly gives them superpowers and, well, it turns five of them into enhanced “Mega-Minions” who are apparently going to carry this franchise on their backs for the next millennium. There’s a lot going on here, which will work well for the attention spans of children, but will do very little for the adults sitting next to them. At times it feels as though director Chris Renaud, working with writers Mike White and Ken Daurio, just threw every idea they could muster up into the final product without stepping back and wondering whether it could be edited down.

Luckily, most of it is light and amusing in that patented “Despicable Me” way, but I remember a time when being entertaining was just the bare minimum. There’s not much here other than the usual antics, a couple of which savor fleeting moments of more mature comedy, such as by having a lazy security guard read a book about dealing with an unpleasant boss instead of watching the cameras, and Max and Valentina land their supership at a gas station only for Max to have trouble with the pump and complain about the prices. Otherwise, the rest of the humor is silly, random, and makes no sense. Human bodies defy the laws of physics, get splattered in various liquids and substances, projectile crash into walls and other things, get hit on the head with blunt objects, fly, glide and slide aimlessly, and get blasted into the air by explosions. Yet for all this spectacle (and all these characters), it’s surprising how underwhelming the final duel actually is, only pitting Gru and Max against each other in a very brief face-off before the movie abruptly wraps itself up.

Then again, it’s not as though “Despicable Me 4” cares much about plot beats anyway. Mostly, it’s perfectly content to just deliver callback after franchise callback that will make both young children and older fans who grew up on these movies excited. The final scene in particular, a dance party set to “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” will do things for fans that even Marvel can’t muster up these days. The singular experience and idea of “Despicable Me 4” are enjoyable thoughts, so much so that you might start convincing yourself it’s a much better movie than it actually is, but you’ll still undoubtedly walk away thinking about all the things to miss here.

Everybody wants to rule the box office. But Illumination should probably have stopped after the first two movies.

Now playing in theaters.