There’s little to actually distinguish Despicable Me 4 from any of its other parts — or its spin-offs. The near-episodic, almost immediately forgettable plot has Gru, and his family — the adopted girls Margo, Edith, Agnes, the wife, Lucy, their newest member, baby Gru Jr and three Minions — are put into an identity protection programme after Maxime Le Mal, a villain from his past, escapes from prison.

It is a predictable story with predictable turns. Gru and the family are relocated to a very small house in an uber-posh and very snotty suburb, and their next-door neighbour’s daughter, Poppy, immediately discovers Gru’s real identity (with the way he looks, it wasn’t that hard to guess) and blackmails him into committing a burglary to get a taste of what it feels like to be “evil”.

The burglary is of a honey badger named Lenny from the secret Lycée Pas Bon School of Villainy, whose wheelchair-bound principal, Übelschlecht, loathes its star student Gru. Übelschlecht’s favourite pupil is Maxime, Gru’s school rival, whose experimentations on himself have transmuted him into a human-cockroach hybrid of great strength (the ridiculous character already had a bad fashion sense).

The plot, screenwritten by Mike White and Ken Daurio, is hardly “despicable”, though it is patently uninspiring and hacky. The bright colour palette, the minions’ idiotic well-meaning shenanigans and zippy action, however, do make for a cheery entertainer, where one genuinely laughs a few times at the cartoonish inanity; chances are, though, that one will forget everything in a matter of days.

The voice work by Kristen Wiig, Pierre Coffin, Joey King, Miranda Cosgrove, Sofía Vergara, Steve Coogan, Stephen Colbert, Madison Polan, Dana Gaier, Chloe Fineman and Chris Renaud is fine, though the three that will stand out are Will Ferrell as Maxime, Steve Carell as Gru and Pierre Coffin as the many minions.

The Despicable Me franchise makes a lot of money. But as its fourth part shows, it seems to have run out of ideas — not that its audience cares

Five of them (namely Dave, Mel, Gus, Tim and Jerry) are given superpowers to make the world a better place; given the minions’ track record for blundering, one can see how that bit will turn out.

The Despicable Me franchise is primarily kiddie fare — and a very lucrative one at that, grossing, according to the film tracking website Box-office Mojo, over 4.6 billion dollars through six cinema releases. Part 3 had made over a billion in 2017 and part 4, released this weekend, already sits at the 10th highest grossing spot of the year, with a nearly 300 million-dollar take.

Would it make a billion in today’s economy…who can say? However, when money starts pouring in, who goes for screenwriting quality? Or, put another way, if the lacklustre is doing good-enough, perhaps people are getting exactly what they want.

One can’t really complain…apart from in reviews, that is.

Despicable Me 4, a Universal release, is rated PG, and features scenes of wild destruction by the indestructible minions — all in cartoon-ish fun, really

Published in Dawn, ICON, July 21st, 2024