Quite Despicable
There are only a few inevitabilities in life. Death is one of them. Taxes are another. The third, apparently, are Minions. Those goddamn gibberish-spilling, overall-wearing, yellow pill-shaped things. The first Despicable Me only came out in 2010, but it seems as if they’ve been polluting the pop culture air for aeons. I personally find them completely irksome, but they’ve had audiences in the millions rolling in the aisles. And because of their own solo movie made over a billion dollars back in 2015 (I mean, of course, it did), we’re brought to the fourth inevitability in life, Despicable Me 3, the second sequel in the decade’s most lucrative animated franchise. If you’re unlike me and like many other people, you’ll be swayed by another bright, kinetic and funny outing that gives you pretty much exactly what you’d expect from this series. If you’re like me, however, well, you may have less of a good time.
The film opens with a genuinely killer and highly entertaining heist sequence that kicks the film immediately into high gear and its most effective example of its blend of inventive visual comedy and tongue-in-cheek wittiness. After an attempt at stopping 80’s inspired supervillain Balthasar Bratt (South Park’s Trey Parker) stealing a precious diamond, Gru and Lucy (Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig) are fired from their job at the Anti-Villain League. Attempting to make something of himself for the sake of his adopted daughters, Gru unites with his long lost brother Dru, himself on a quest for villainy like his brother. Meanwhile, Bratt, armed with 80’s pop tunes and bubblegum blasters, continues his own quest for, you guessed it, taking over the world.
That’s about it as far as story, and look, you’re not going into a Despicable Me film expecting high art, are you? If you are, sorry, but you’re kinda kidding yourself. Illumination Entertainment has basically built its super successful brand on making mildly diverting, unambitious, digestible fluff (their best film still remains the first Despicable Me). On that front, Despicable M3 (as the credits deem it) doesn’t disappoint. It’s a breakneck, energetic and colourful 90 minutes that will undoubtedly appease the comedy appetites of the under-10s and maybe the older ones. This being said, there’s an overall lack of ambition that becomes somewhat frustrating. I’ve always found the “it’s just a kids movie” excuse a complete and utter cop-out, so it really is quite irritating (more so than those blasted Minions) to get the sense that they modelled the film on that very excuse. My main problem with Minions the film is that it felt as if the film was being written as they went along. This problem is present here to a slightly lesser extent here, but it’s still a problem.
What DM3 could have really benefitted from is a tighter, wittier script. The discovering the long lost sibling angle that drives the film just feels so tired and done to death. There are some interesting flecks of what parents would do to provide for their children under struggling circumstances. I can’t help but imagine how much more involving the film would have been if it had developed on an idea like that rather than something so tried and tested. Instead, it walks a fine line of shrill, over the top visual noise and genuinely amusing, zippy inventiveness, intercut with Minion scenes that come across more like tacked-on vignettes rather than effectively moving the plot forward (much like Scrat the squirrel in the Ice Age films).
By a significantly wide margin, the crown jewel in DM3’s armour is that of Balthazar Bratt. Bratt is the only character in the film that feels satisfyingly fleshed out. His bitterness about his failings after being a former child star is a surprisingly effective depiction of childhood fame and ego. While the film peaks early with that awesome opening sequence, every scene he is in makes DM3 almost completely worthwhile. And the decision to soundtrack his villainy to 80’s pop songs like Michael Jackson’s Bad is a stroke of genius. It’s enough to make you wish the film was solely focused on him rather than anything else (it’s a damn shame he’s not in it enough).
Anything I say here is pretty much redundant, because people love Minions too bloody much, and this will surely rake it in and be one of the biggest grosser of the year. And look, that’s fine. It’s completely harmless and an unpretentious way to kill an hour and a half. But aside from some entertaining slapstick and a cool as ice villain, it’s kind of hard not to want less Predictable Me and more Despicable Me.