Despicable Me 4 (2024)
Directed by: Chris Renaud and Patrick Delage
Premise: Gru (voice of Steve Carell) lives a family life with his children, including a new baby boy. A villain from Gru’s past escapes from prison and the family goes into protective custody.
What Works: As with most franchise filmmaking, viewers come to the Despicable Me series expecting a certain kind of experience and the fourth movie fulfills its obligations; it has the gadgets and the glib dialogue and the Minions. Despicable Me 4 also keeps up the madcap energy that has been characteristic of this series. In all, it has everything that has been popular with the Despicable Me fans and the sequel ought to entertain its intended audience.
What Doesn’t: The plotting of Despicable Me 4 is sloppy and disjointed. The film introduces various characters and subplots but none of it comes together. Nothing that is set up is ever paid off. Despite only running ninety-four minutes, the film feels quite padded. The Despicable Me franchise consists of a very predictable collection of elements. Gru and his family are threatened by a supervillain, he faces the challenges of being a husband and father, and in between the Minions engage in physical comedy. By this fourth go round the formula is really tired and Despicable Me 4 feels like it’s going through the motions. With the exception of the Minions, who are consistently amusing, everything else feels perfunctory. There are no surprises. That’s evidenced by the way these characters have literally stopped growing. The children are the same age that they were in the first installment released in 2010. Compare this to the Toy Story series in which Andy grew up throughout the first three pictures. The emotional core of the series is Gru and his family and the original Despicable Me transformed Gru from a villain to a family man but he and the daughters haven’t grown since. The filmmakers don’t even try. Despicable Me 4 has no meaningful interactions between Gru and the rest of his family. They aren’t even in the same scene for much of the picture and any attempt to shake up the formula is undone in the ending which resets everyone back to where they were with nothing to show for it. The Despicable Me series is stuck in a holding pattern and while it does amuse, the picture is very obviously born of a corporate imperative to exploit a brand rather than any artistic vision.
Bottom Line: Despicable Me 4 will probably satisfy the fans but there isn’t much to it. This sequel and this franchise are creatively inert.
Episode: #1004 (July 14, 2024)