Trouble with the Curve — Despicable Me 4
I’ve said many a time before that one of my basic philosophies when it comes to film criticism is that I’m much more forgiving of an ambitious failure than I am a safe mediocrity. Essentially, if you take a risk and fall short, that’s still better for me than playing things by the numbers and being just “good enough” with it. But what happens when a series has been so terrible for so long that “good enough” feels like a victory? That’s the conundrum with Despicable Me 4, a wholly unnecessary continuation of Illumination’s flagship franchise which has cast a pall of do-Minion over quality animation for the last decade, bringing down our cultural conversation more and more with each new installment since the truly grand original in 2010.
Literally nothing about this latest feature was needed or even desired by the masses, and there are myriad issues with the story and character beats. But all that said, I did enjoy it. This is, by default, the best movie in the series since the first Despicable Me, mostly because for the first time since the debut, there are basic competent elements like stakes, a cogent plot, and humor that isn’t 100% ass-based gibberish spewed by semi-sentient yellow Tic Tacs.
So let’s deal with the garbage first, because I want to dispense with it as quickly as possible and focus on the stuff that was surprisingly good, to the point where I had to turn “The Worst Trailer in the World” into a two-parter this month. The first is that there are just too many dangling threads that never get properly resolved, to the point where they feel like check-in vignettes with the various characters rather than actual diversions or subplots. See, after Gru (Steve Carell) arrests his former high school rival, Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell) at their class reunion (the foundation of their feud is appropriately silly, but in keeping with the brand centers on a lazy and easily correctable factual error), Silas Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan, still playing a character that sounds like the name of a gay porn star) relocates Gru’s entire family (including new baby, Gru Jr., whose existence alone means we have to picture Gru procreating and wonder why the girls still haven’t aged) to a safehouse in a different upper class suburb from the one they normally occupy.
This leads to an inane series of shorts where the group adjusts to their new life. Gru makes awkward small talk with the neighbors, Perry and Patsy Prescott (Stephen Colbert and Chloe Fineman), which has no resolution other than Minion shenanigans at a tennis match. Margo (Miranda Cosgrove) enrolls at a new school, has one bad day, and we basically never talk to her again. Agnes (Madison Polan) has a crisis of conscience about “lying” and using her assumed identity of Britney, to which Edith (Dana Gaier) defends her at an out-of-nowhere martial arts class, and we basically never talk to either one again. Lucy (Kristen Wiig) is given a cover job as a hairstylist, but she’s completely unqualified (why would Silas set her up to fail and become more conspicuous?), leading to a scene where an irate client (Laraine Newman) goes full Terminator on her (seriously, they even blasphemously use the theme song), chasing her through a supermarket… and we basically never talk to her again. Sensing a theme?
Things are further complicated when Gru is accosted by the Prescotts’ teenage daughter, Poppy (Joey King). She’s apparently very aware of Gru’s villainous past, and decides to use him to help her get into his old school, Lycée Pas Bon (an actually clever joke), by pulling a heist to kidnap the school’s mascot, a honey badger. This does eventually progress to a fairly successful B-story, but it beggars belief that Silas, as head of the Anti-Villain League, would not vet the neighbors of a supposed secure location to make sure that Gru’s cover won’t be instantly blown, or that he wouldn’t be available for Gru to contact the moment Poppy makes her empty threat.
These huge lapses in logic are because Silas is busy developing an experimental “super serum” to change five of the Minions into “Mega Minions” so we can sell more toys. The entire tangent is an exercise in ripping off Marvel properties (including a direct recreation of the train scene from Spider-Man 2 that had me muttering “How dare you, movie!” under my breath) that never read as parody, have no bearing on the main narrative, and only satisfy in the sense that when the perennial sidekicks fuck up, the entire public turns on them, voicing the opinions of millions of movie-goers over the last 14 years. It’s somewhat cathartic, but I’m not sure it was intentional.
That’s a lot of superfluous sewage to wade through, but once you do, you’ll find something shockingly worth your time. As dumb as it is that Gru would even be invited to his high school reunion when he works for the AVL, the opening sequence arresting Le Mal is supremely well-animated, with an appropriate mix of action and comedy. Le Mal himself represents the first true threat that Gru and company have ever really faced. Having developed technology to morph himself into a hybrid cockroach (employing an army of the insects as his underlings), and hell-bent on vengeance for Gru humiliating him, Le Mal turns his focus to hitting Gru where it hurts, by targeting the baby in hopes of transforming and corrupting him. That’s legitimately menacing and relatable to the parents in the audience, especially new parents who are super protective of their little ones. Sure Gru’s had to save the girls before, but they’ve never been the direct object of the antagonist’s rage, merely collateral risk.
Further, in a truly wonderful display of intellectual credibility and subversion, the film opts to show us how Gru and Le Mal are similar without overtly stating the “we’re not so different” cliché. Both have style and a penchant for flamboyant yet practical weaponry. Both got a renewed sense of purpose once they found love (in Le Mal’s case it is Sofia Vergara as femme fatale Valentina). Both have villainous behaviors and motivations somewhat grounded in reality (a scene where Le Mal rages at a gas station for not reading his credit card chip spoke to me on a spiritual level). One has an endless horde of annoying nigh-immortal parasites that do his bidding… and Le Mal has cockroaches, HA HA!
Finally, and most importantly, there’s an actual variety to the jokes. The Minions are mostly shunted off to the side apart from a couple tag-alongs for Gru and the easily forgotten Megas. The rest just work at the AVL as background office drones, most of them wearing fancy suits in a fun meta nod to the “GentleMinions” meme that sprouted from the fandom when the last awful movie came out. This greatly reduces the volume of butt gags in favor of genuinely fun antics like one getting stuck in a vending machine and being playfully tormented by his brethren. It also opens the door for Poppy to be a more fully-realized accomplice, giving her some great moments (there’s a joke surrounding two particular video games that is so inspired that I laughed for a solid minute and wished the bit would go on for seven more) and making the execution of the heist genuinely compelling. Even the obligatory Easter Eggs, callbacks, and cameos are basically saved for a nice ending montage, signaling a potentially apropos coda for the series should Universal (or more likely, the actors) decide they’ve had enough. This is what happens when you have competent writing, courtesy of Orange County and School of Rock scribe Mike White (co-written with Ken Daurio, who’s partially responsible for all the things wrong with the scripting of this series). It’s far from perfect, especially from a plotting perspective, but given that this is a comedy, it’s a relief to have some actual, honest to God EFFORT put into said.
So what’s a cynic like me to do? In a vacuum, this is a C- at best. There’s a litany of structural problems, most of the supporting cast is underserved, and even the emotional push of Gru trying to form a bond with his infant son is formulaic beyond belief (though still affecting at times). But I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t have fun, because for the first time in years, a Despicable Me film showed legitimate potential. There is artistry, there is a degree of resonance, there are jokes that actually land. I can’t ignore or dismiss that. As such, this is one of the few times where I’m grading on a curve. On its own, this is middle of the road, but given everything we’ve gone through to get to something not only tolerable but occasionally delightful, I have to at least give it a marginal endorsement.
Grade: B-
Join the conversation in the comments below! What film should I review next? Where do you rank this movie within the series? Where can I get Silas’ big sandwich? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) and YouTube for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!
Originally published at http://actuallypaid.com on July 17, 2024.
