In Despicable Me 4, former villain turned Anti-Villain League (AVL) agent, Gru (Steve Carell), and his wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig) are living an idyllic life with their three adopted girls and their new baby, Gru Jr.. However, when Gru’s former schoolmate and rival, Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell) escapes from the prison in which Gru put him, Maxime vows to get revenge on Gru by using his cockroach ray gun to turn the baby into a cockroach-human hybrid. The AVL moves Gru and Co. to a safe house in the posh town of Mayflower, where they all must assume new identities. They attempt to assimilate, but the teenage next-door neighbor, Poppy (Joey King), discovers Gru’s former villain identity. Poppy views herself an up-and-coming villain looking to build a resume for herself, so she blackmails Gru and forces him help her steal the honey badger mascot from his old alma mater.
The problem when you hit a sixth film in a series is that many times you have too large of a cast and/or there’s aren’t many unique directions to take the story. Despicable Me 4 is no exception. There are way too many plot lines: you have Gru and Poppy with the heist, Lucy and the girls’ failures at staying undercover, the Minions working as AVL agents, the Mega-Minions subplot to the Minions subplot, and Maxime going after Gru. As a result, may of these storylines barely get kicked off before they deflate, get pushed aside, and never get resolved.
For example, there isn’t enough time to focus on the villain Maxime, which is a shame because he’s actually a pretty interesting and fun character. We are introduced to him at the beginning and do a few brief check ins on him until the final boss fight. Lucy and the girls are pushed to the back burner, feeling very underdeveloped and as though the filmmakers needed to check off a box with their inclusion. It almost would have been better if Gru could have been sent on an AVL mission, leaving the wife and kids at home.
As far as the voice cast goes, Steve Carell kills it yet again as Gru. Will Ferrell delivers a hilarious performance as the French cockroach man, Maxime. Joey King as Poppy hits a home run with her braces-induced lisp, making her surprisingly one of the better characters of the movie.
This film franchise does a really great job with its character and production designs. There is so much appeal in these caricatured characters and everything visually pops, from Maxime’s overly puffy coat and the new snobby neighbors to the aging headmistress at the school.
Despicable Me and the Minions are synonymous at this point, so ample screen time needs to be reserved for these little yellow guys. And thankfully, they steal the show as usual. You never seem to get tired of their antics, jokes, and hilarious Minions language. The writers did a great job of having certain comedic moments thread through the film and revisited to amplify the humor of the various times.
That being said, the Mega-Minions, were a bust. These are five Minions who undergo a supernatural experiment by the AVL and end up turning into superheroes. They resemble famous comic book superheroes, such as the Fantastic Four. There’s even a fourth-wall breaking joke where a character bemoans this situation saying, “No more superheroes!” It’s obvious that the filmmakers know that superheroes are overdone, but they still really wanted to include their version of Minion superheroes in the film anyway. Perhaps they should have listened to their own character and cut this plotline completely as it really has does nothing for the plot until they conveniently save the day at the end.
Illumination has proven itself time and time again that when you see a Despicable Me movie, the audience is going enjoy itself and have a good time. While not perfect, Despicable Me 4 is a fun summer film that families will inevitably enjoy. It’s funny, but the sheer amount of plotlines is chaotic and unsatisfying in the end.
★★1/2
