Despicable Me 4
★★½
(PG) 94 minutes
The despicable me The movies were originally about a bad guy with a secretly soft heart. But that was a long time ago. For several movies now, the antihero Gru, voiced by Steve Carell, has been a solid citizen on the right side of the law, and even his crime-fighting duties come second to his commitment to be a father.
In Despicable Me 4, Gru has expanded his family with a biological son.Credit:
His family has expanded Despicable Me 4, directed by series regular Chris Renaud (with Patrick Delage). In addition to their three adopted daughters, Gru and his perfect wife, Lucy (Kristen Wiig), now have a biological son, which only confirms their respectability, even if Gru Jr has inherited his father's rebellious side.
The gag is that, on the outside, Gru is still what he always was, a ruined troll probably at least distantly related to the Addams Family's Uncle Fester (one of his enemies calls him a “walking boiled potato,” a description that doesn't it can be improved, with its long nose like a blade inserted to check that it has cooked to the end).
It's like that despicable me trust brains see themselves? Gru's co-creator Pierre Coffin is French, which probably helped him get away with a certain amount of “funny foreigners” stereotypes. But despite Carell's generic “Slavic” accent, so far the series' ethnic comedy has been far less pronounced than, say, Adam Sandler's. Hotel Transylvania movies
Despicable Me 4however, it begins as a straight-up story about assimilation, with Gru and his family placed in a sort of witness protection program after he's attacked by a flamboyant French rival (Will Ferrell, basically playing his evil designer Mugatu fashion from Zoolander). Their new home is in an upscale suburb, which presents its challenges: world domination is one thing, but have you tried fitting in at the country club?
The key to success, Gru reports, is to be “less Gru-ish.” Fortunately or not, the theme is barely developed. Neither is any other issue, inevitably given the plethora of subplots.
There's Lucy's new job as a hairdresser, but that's going nowhere, and neither are Gru's daughters' karate lessons. A more promising setup involves a pre-teen villain wannabe (Joey King) who blackmails Gru into becoming his mentor, but even that fizzles out, with the character softened too quickly.
