Despicable Me 4: Fun Family Franchise Continues (but with Extra Subversion)

By Chris Knight

Rating: B+

There’s a drinking game to be had from all the movie references in Despicable Me 4.

And before you go questioning whether drinking games are entirely appropriate for an animated kids’ movie, consider that a child who was six when the first Despicable Me came out in the summer of 2010 has been legally allowed to imbibe now for over a year. (Two in Quebec!)

In any case, if you took a shot every time you were reminded of another film or franchise — The Incredibles, Marvel, Terminator, Harry Potter, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, to name but a few — you’d be a muzzy, muddled Minion long before the movie wrapped at the 94-minute mark.

Also, I’m not suggesting you do it. Though paling in comparison to its long-ago progenitor, this one has ample charm and chuckles without the need for alcoholic enhancement.

The newest chapter finds Gru (Steve Carell, his voiced pitched somewhere between Bela Lugosi and Gilbert Gottfried) suburbanly settled and the proud papa of baby Gru Jr.

Earlier films introduced his now-wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig) and three adopted girls while knocking much of the evil out of him. But there remains a glimmer of diabolicality within, enough that when someone suggests a mild theft — more of a prank, really — he throws himself into the task, even bringing the baby along to help.

He’s also living in a kind of witness protection after an old nemesis (Will Ferrell as Maxime Le Mal) breaks out of prison with vengeance on his mind. Gru and the family must adopt new names and lifestyles while they wait for Maxime to be captured. Or perhaps they will take matters into their own hands?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Gru’s life in hiding also requires him to divest himself of most of his Minions, those little yellow pill-shaped characters that have proven so popular with audiences that they got their own movie in 2015, plus a sequel in ’22 and a third part coming out in a year.

Gru gets to take three of them with him to the safe house that is his new home, although one of them promptly gets stuck in a vending machine and now basically lives there.

The rest are whisked away to the Anti-Villain League, where a quintet are given a Captain America-like super-serum that imbues each with a unique power. You’ve heard of the Fantastic Four? Think of this as the Flatulent Five.

Returning director Chris Renaud, co-director of parts one and two, knows his way around the characters, and he knows what his audience wants: cartoon mayhem, mild naughtiness from the Minions, social awkwardness from Gru. (I like that when he’s trying to sell the baby on a tropical drink he enthuses: “It’s from the Bahamas! All of them!”) Oh, and movie references — see if you can spot the nod to Dune’s ‘thopters.

This cranky critic, who was a young buck of 40 when the first Despicable Me arrived, found it a little odd that none of the three girls has gotten any older. This despite the presence of Gru Jr., who looks to be at least 12 months old, plus another nine in the oven.

But hey, it’s animation, the most forgiving of media. And the Minions aren’t getting any older, either. Or if they are, it doesn’t show in their Play-Doh-smooth faces.

Just as well, too, because the franchise shows no signs of slowing down. Despicable Me 5 is due in theatres in 2028, by which time some of those first-generation fans might be toting Gru Juniors of their very own.

Despicable Me 4. Directed by Chris Renaud. Starring Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Will Ferrell, and Joey King. Now in theatres.