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Despicable Me 4: Gru Is As Gru-some As Ever, But The Franchise Is Not

This is <em>#CineFile</em> where our critic <em>Rahul Desai</em> goes beyond the obvious takes, to dissect movies and shows that are in the news

Rahul+Desai

Jul 06, 2024

Despicable Me 4

IT’s hard for a Despicable Me movie to not be entertaining. The animated franchise has too much going for it. Steve Carell’s gold-hearted, bald-with-a-dad-bod supervillain Gru (who, in a parallel universe, could be Michael Scott’s imaginary friend) has gatecrashed the lexicon of childhoods otherwise dominated by Pixar movies. His voice-acting remains a playful mix of bedtime storytelling and paternal affection. Not to mention the inbuilt parody of modern superhero fatigue: this is a character who’s too good to be bad and too real to be cool. Then there are the beloved minions, who’ve turned a lowly word of the English language into eccentric yellow-goofball humour. They’re like an evolved version of the Vodafone ZooZoos.

And most of all, there are the accents. The minions spout random Italian-Spanish terms, Gru thinks he sounds like a Romanian-Russian Dracula, and the (actual) villains range from campy Mexican to corny European. Barely any performers speak in their natural accents. It’s the films’ way of taking a potshot at Hollywood’s notorious penchant for cultural appropriation. It’s also a nutty takedown of the United States’ main character energy; of America’s hokey perception of the rest of the world. If anything, these movies count on us noticing how fake the accents are. Which is funny, because one of the characters in Despicable Me 4 is a femme fatale voiced by the inimitable Sofia Vergara — an in-joke, possibly, on how the Colombian-American actress often sounds like a Westerner putting on a Colombian accent. Her character, Valentina, is the girlfriend of the film’s ‘French’ mega-villain, Maxime Le Mal, voiced by mega-comedian Will Ferrell. It’s a blast to hear, if not watch.

The thing about Despicable Me 4 though, is that it struggles to slap beyond the gags. Is it enough to be entertaining? Probably. But a new-age cartoon comes with the responsibility of being more than just creative fan service. There has to be some soul in that flexible body. The film features a primary premise — the now-domesticated Anti-Villain Squad agent Gru and his family go undercover in an idyllic town to escape the wrath of Maxime Le Mal, an ‘Insect Man’ looking for revenge. After being tricked by Gru at a class reunion, Maxime, the star former student of their prestigious villainy school, breaks out of jail and plans to kidnap Gru Jr. the grumpy biological baby of Gru and wife-cum-AVS-agent Lucy. Naturally, this features a whole lot of minions (and their new genetically amplified superhero avatars: Mega-Minions) and the couple’s three adopted daughters Margo, Edith and Agnes.

But there’s also a secondary premise. New neighbour and teenage villain aspirant Poppy recognizes Gru and blackmails him into helping her pull off her first heist, which in turn leads Gru’s former school principal to get involved in the primary premise. It’s all a bit stuffy, like trying to pack in two movies for the price of one. The connective tissue is awkward: Gru and Poppy are a separate story altogether. What this does is dilute the presence of Maxime Le Mal, who seems to be drifting along (literally) until he receives unexpected help. The final face-off between him and Gru isn’t as imaginative as one might expect either. The side track of the superhero-spoofing Mega-Minions, too, feels like a different Minions sequel that’s shoehorned into Gru’s adventure for the sake of…laughs.

I never thought I’d be criticising a Despicable Me movie — they’re critique-proof for what they represent — but here we are. Stranger things have happened in 2024. The bottom line is that, despite its DNA, this film lacks the ingenuity and spark of the first two instalments. It’s all colour and no emotions, an imbalance that merely supplies the popularity of the franchise rather than subverting it. Perhaps it’s time for Felonious Gru to live happily ever after. I’m happy for him and always will be. I’m just not sure we need to see it anymore.