I’m impressed that the series has lasted this long. Three editions of “Despicable Me” and a spinoff film “Minions,” it seems like Illumination has its mind made up that Gru and the gang are here for the long haul.
Despicable Me 3 tells the story of how Gru, a villain turned good guy, is on a quest to capture a super-villain that continues to wreak havoc by theft (most recently, a sizeable diamond). This is his mission as a secret agent of the Anti-Villain League, a team of spies who work in secret to capture the bad guys. But after he fails his mission he’s not only fired, but slips into a slight depression. All of this changes of course when he discovers he has a brother.
All of that is extra because you know why you came. You know why I was there and you know why your kids wanted to come… The Minions. It’s what everyone loves about Despicable Me, the tiny henchmen that help Gru carry out his plans and sometimes concoct schemes of their own. As you can see from the poster, they end up in jail, which might seem like a bad thing for them. But since they roll about 100 deep, if they were ’bout that life’ they could take over anything they wanted… like a prison.
Like Donald Glover, I have to give shouts out to Migos not just because we’re in Atlanta, but I was totally thrown off when the movie opened and a guy with hydraulics was blasting their music. It was magical.
Gru’s daughters are cute as always, the youngest one will come at you once again with “Fluffy!” and the exchange between Gru and Dru (Steve Carell) has its moments, but the two main factors that drive this movie are of course the Minions but an extremely funny villain in Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker). Bratt was a child superstar with his own TV show but was blackballed by Hollywood once he hit puberty. He has a great disdain for Hollywood and turned evil because of it. His show was popular in the 80’s so he dresses like it and all the music that plays when he’s onscreen is from that time period. So naturally, the soundtrack is pretty epic. His first heist that we see, he gets into a dance-off and battles to “Bad” by Michael Jackson. Again, epic.
Aside from the Minions and Balthazar the film is pretty boring. Kids will enjoy the random, vulgar acts of burping, the occasional fart, and the few scenes where the main characters float helplessly in the sky naked, but overall it’s pretty weak. So I give Despicable Me 3 a 6.5 out of 10. It hurts only because I don’t want the Minions to get dragged down with this but what can ya do?
-Jon J.