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Despicable Me 3
STARRING: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Trey Parker
DIRECTOR: Pierre Coffin, Kyle Balda
Genre: Animation
Rating: PG
RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes
Minions are legion. I’m sure you’ve seen them, even if you weren’t sure what they were called or where they came from. You know those yellow pill-shaped things, emblazoned on children’s backpacks, lunchboxes, bedspreads and pillows? Those things.
Expect another dose of Minion fever as the third Despicable Me instalment (fourth if you count the spin-off imaginatively named … Minions) hits cinema screens. The series, a surprise hit that spawned a merchandising bandwagon that even the Universal executives would never have dreamed of, is back.
The first film was excellent, the second and Minions not so much. That is of little concern to the creators though, as they could plod out anything resembling a feature-length movie and watch the ticket sales soar and the merchandise dinars rake in like nobody’s business.
Sadly, that seems to be the case with Despicable Me 3. It has some great ideas and some strong points, but it also plummets new depths for the series at the same time.
By the time it comes to an end, the franchise has officially worn out its welcome once and for all despite a stylish adventure.
Despicable Me 3 follows supervillain-turned model dad and hero Gru (Carell) as both he and his wife Lucy Wilde (Wiig) are fired from their jobs, sending their lives into uncertain territory until Gru receives a message from his previously unknown twin brother, Dru (also voiced by Carell), who wishes to establish a relationship with his long-lost sibling. However, Dru’s secret agenda leads to an opportunity for Gru to seek vengeance on Balthazar Bratt (Parker), the world-famous child-actor-turned-supervillain who caused Gru to be fired in the first place.
Now, if that plot synopsis makes it sound like the film may be combining two very different movies into one, that’s because it’s exactly what it does. It is arguably one of the more overstuffed animated films to come around in quite some time, which keeps it from ever really finding a suitable groove or coherent structure at any point throughout.
That’s because, in addition to the drama surrounding Gru, Dru, and Balthazar, Despicable Me 3 decides to dedicate unreasonably long periods of time on various subplots: Lucy becoming a better mother to Gru’s daughters; Agnes (Nev Scharrel) going on a wild hunt to find a real unicorn; and the Minions abandoning Gru to pursue their own villainous interests.
The existence of those subplots might not be quite so damaging if it wasn’t for the fact that none of them ever really affect or tie into the main storylines that drive the film. They are there for padding to make sure Despicable Me 3 has at least a 90-minute runtime. Bless the little children who have to try and follow what’s going on, too.
It’s especially frustrating considering just how entertaining the confrontations are between Balthazar and Gru. Since both are arrogant and foolhardy villains in their own right, they bounce off of each other to great, often hilarious effect, while Balthazar’s obsession with the 1980s leads to many action sequences set to fantastic music that would have Editor Stan dancing with glee.
These great moments manage to always lift the film up, even when it looks like it’ll just be dragged down again by another unnecessary interaction between Gru and Dru (a character who is as annoying and charmless as he seems on paper), or another superfluous example of how much Lucy is struggling to be a mother.
But instead of focusing on just one simple conflict between Gru and Balthazar, Despicable Me 3 goes off on multiple, increasingly mundane tangents that can’t help but make the overall storyline involving Balthazar feel like a missed opportunity in the end. The same goes for a majority of the film, which tries to be too much all at once and winds up feeling like the least substantial of the Despicable Me films as a result.
This is an entertaining enough film that could have been so much more had the writers focussed on what really works. Sadly, too much extraneous nonsense drags it down. Will your kids care, though, when they grab their Minions-branded popcorn bucket and sit down for their first blockbuster of a very long summer holiday? Not a jot, and ultimately, that’s what matters.
Showing at: Cineco, Seef II, Saar, Al Jazira, Wadi Al Sail, Mukta A2, Novo Cinemas
Rating: 3/5
