Despicable Me 4 – Review

Cert – U, Run-time – 1 hour 34 minutes, Directors – Chris Renaud and Patrick Delage

When a former rival (Will Ferrell) escapes from prison, Gru (Steve Carell) and his family are moved into hiding by the Anti-Villain League, however it’s difficult for everyone to keep to their new identities.

Despite now having their own film series the Minions are now firmly the heart of the Despicable Me franchise, too. What were once briefly-seen comic relief characters are now almost given a full narrative arc playing out alongside the main events of the film. Yet, not to be separated from the main events themselves we still see three of the much-marketed yellow figures pulling their own pranks on each other, largely involving a vending machine, and assisting Gru (Steve Carell) and his family as they’re moved into hiding by the Anti-Villain League. For those who aren’t fans of the characters, this latest entry in the franchise is unlikely to change any minds.

Even with the introduction of the Mega Minions, a group of superpowered creatures created to be a new force for the AVL, and potentially spoof some superhero flicks, the antics remain very much the same. They’re created to help take down Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell), a former rival of Gru’s out to get revenge by kidnapping his months-old son, Gru Jr, who Gru is struggling to bond with. The clichés are written large across the narrative as the family struggle to adapt to their new identities – whether it be youngest daughter Agnes (Madison Polan) worrying about lying, or wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig) showing no skills at being a hairstylist – and once again Illumination create a problematically familiar narrative.

Despite having a basic feel to the structure the overall plot still somehow feels overstuffed with ideas, crammed into the 94-minute run-time and jumping back between Gru, his family, the Mega Minions and indeed another set of Minions for even more cutaway gags. It would be easier to forgive if it wasn’t for the lacklustre nature of the laughs. With the reintroduction of AVL director Silas Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan) we get the same ‘pfft bottom’ joke we did 9 years ago; and treated only half as a throwback. In general the gags feel laboured and most of the time fail to get a proper response, whether down to how obvious they seem, the fact they just aren’t very funny or the fact we’ve seen them done before.

There may be some chuckles here and there, including a very good train gag during a montage of the Mega Minions wreaking havoc across a city, but not enough to sustain the film through its run-time. A possible reference to Spider-Man 2 works, but an extended reference to Terminator 2 during a chase in a supermarket falters largely down to just how much it’s drawn out.

Throw in occasional glimpses of Le Mal, just to remind us there is a villain here, and a couple of sidelines involving the new neighbours (primarily Stephen Colbert’s Perry and teenage daughter Poppy, voiced by Joey King for some reason with a lisp) in their lavish home, and the film ends up feeling more like a set of sketched ideas rather than something more fully-rounded. We’ve seen much of Despicable Me 4 before, including in the previous films in the series. While other entries have proved amusing and Illumination generally manages to get away with their convention here this isn’t the case. The proceedings quickly become boring and make for a set of events which appear to stretch beyond the near hour-and-a-half run-time.

There’s little new on display in Despicable Me 4, which rounds off with a near-lookback at the franchise in a way that doesn’t warrant nostalgia or memories, particularly knowing that this likely won’t be the last we see of the characters (Minions 3 has just been set for 2027). Instead we get a repeat of familiar narrative elements and gags from both in and out of the series. Some raise a mild chuckle, but very few, and you wish that the film would kick into gear and bring something new and more exciting to the table instead of relying on a heavy dose of reheated ideas melded into each other to get the characters from Point A to B.

Despicable Me 4 feels like a reheated version of the franchises previous entries, lacking in spark and excitement it eventually feels like a bland mix of familiar ideas and very few effective jokes amongst the busy muddle of perspectives.