Despicable Me 4 (2024, dir. Chris Renaud)

by Jack Martin | Jul 13, 2024

Certificate: U

Running Time: 94 mins

UK Distributor: Universal Pictures

UK Release Date: 12 July 2024

WHO’S IN DESPICABLE ME 4?

Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Pierre Coffin, Will Ferrell, Joey King, Sofia Vergara, Stephen Colbert, Chloe Fineman, Steve Coogan, Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, Madison Polan

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Chris Renaud (director), Ken Daurio and Mike White (writers), Brett Hoffman and Christopher Meledandri (producers), Heitor Pereira (composer), Tiffany Hillkurtz (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

Gru (Carell) and his family are forced to go on the run…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON DESPICABLE ME 4?

Despite its enormous financial success and unquestionable universal appeal, the Despicable Me franchise is… kind of weird, when you start to think about it.

For starters, in this world where villains are a dime a dozen, where are all the heroes? What is the purpose of an Anti-Villain League when villainy is apparently a more popular profession than actual government work? How is everyone not batting an eyelid to the countless horde of tiny yellow creatures in denim overalls following a man with a long, pointy nose and a scarf that screams “evil”, despite his reformed nature? And why, oh why, is there no end to the joy of hearing a Minion say “bottom”?

The series has done well thus far to not address any of these logical concerns, instead leaning into the cartoonish mindlessness of it all by finding new ways to make its audience giggle with glee, regardless of whether or not it makes a lick of sense. That continues to be the case with Despicable Me 4, a new entry that might just be the silliest and most nonsensical of the lot… but for anyone who’s stuck with these movies up to this point (including the two Minions spin-offs), it barely matters.

This film finds Gru (Steve Carell) settling into family life with his wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig), adopted daughters Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Madison Polan), and his baby son Gru Jr., who in typical infant fashion does not seem to show any affection towards his father in any way shape or form. Their lives are suddenly uprooted when French-accented villain Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell) escapes from captivity and swears revenge on Gru, forcing them all – yes, including the Minions – to go into hiding in the next town over, donning new identities and trying to fit in with their new neighbours, with predictably messy results.

At least, that’s just one of the many, many things going on in Despicable Me 4. For instance, there’s also a strand involving the Minions donning superpowers and becoming the “Mega-Minions” that, almost inevitably, end up doing more harm than good.

Then, there’s a section where Gru is blackmailed by young neighbour Poppy (Joey King) into stealing a honey badger from Gru’s old school for aspiring villains (again, how is it that villainy is such an open profession that there’s formal education for it, yet there’s major government forces designed to stop them in their tracks?)

And I haven’t even mentioned that the villain is obsessed with cockroaches for some reason, and has not only transformed parts of his body into cockroach-like features, but plans to use some kind of device that would also turn people into cockroaches because… cockroaches are misunderstood, I guess? I just don’t know anymore.

Honestly, I feel like a madman just typing all of this out. It’s nonsensical to the extreme, which is strange to say about a franchise that has leant into its cartoonish anything-goes nature from the start, but Despicable Me 4 somehow ends up looking even nuttier than its predecessors, because those at least had more of an idea of what they wanted to do. This one is constantly throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, and more often than not the stuff being thrown is hardly enough to sustain a whole movie, let alone a series of vignettes that it closer resembles, albeit ones that aren’t fully developed. Many of these subplots end up going nowhere, including the more promising one of Gru having to mentor a young new villain, as though it recognises that the audience’s attention span is waning and needs something loud and colourful to further distract them whilst their parents take a breather.

It is utter nonsense and wildly scattershot in its plotting, more so than any of the other films, but the most important thing to consider is whether its audience will enjoy it, and in that regard, I think they will. Children (and most adults) will no doubt be entertained by all the non-verbal silliness going on with the Minions, and older viewers can appreciate the animation which, as is common with Illumination, is quite stunning to look at.

However, I can also see some viewers losing a bit of patience with Despicable Me 4 if they’re after something a bit more concrete in both its plotting and overall sense of humour, which is noticeably lacking this time around. The stuff with the Minions is funny, and as ever they are the best part of the movie, but a lot of the stuff with the main characters, including Gru and his family, and a rather bland new villain voiced by Will Ferrell doing his best impression of the French Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail for the entire thing, mostly falls flat.

It’s a bit awkward watching/listening to these performers try their best to make the material (co-written by Mike White, who wrote a more appealing Illumination movie recently with Migration) work for the sake of a mild chuckle, but if it’s to a point where not even the children are giggling that hard – as was the case at my screening – then something has gone a bit wrong in that department.

In all honesty, though, it makes little difference what I or any other critic thinks of Despicable Me 4. You’ve probably already made up your mind about whether or not to see it, especially if you’ve seen and enjoyed the previous movies, or if you just want to giggle at the Minions doing and saying silly things. That’s fair enough, and I’m sure it will do just fine with whomever wants to check it out. Just know that you are not exactly going to get an actual movie to go along with all that silliness.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Despicable Me 4 is as silly and nonsensical as anything else in the hugely successful franchise, but with far more scattershot plotting and maddeningly less logic than usual, it may test the patience of certain audience members.