Despicable Me 3 Review
PG: action and rude humor
Universal Pictures, Illumination Entertainment
1 Hr and 30 Minutes
Voice Cast: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Trey Parker, Julie Andrews, Steve Coogan, Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, Nev Scharrel, Jenny Slate
REVIEW: Yes, I have done a REvisit to this as well and you can read it here. In 2010, Illumination came onto the scene with Despicable Me. It was an animated film that made a lot of money on a low million dollar budget. Then soon it became a billion dollar franchise with Despicable Me 2 being Universal Pictures’ most profitable film EVER! Seriously its spin-off film, Minions became the first non-Disney animated film to break a billion dollars in the box office. Of course, with a lot of money, we would get another sequel in the Despicable Me universe. Here’s the thing though; I actually liked it.
After he is fired from the Anti-Villain League for failing to take down the latest bad guy to threaten humanity, Gru finds himself in the midst of a major identity crisis. But when a mysterious stranger shows up to inform Gru that he has a long-lost twin brother-a brother who desperately wishes to follow in his twin's despicable footsteps-one former super-villain will rediscover just how good it feels to be bad.
THE GOOD: When you have a sequel to a successful film, a lot of movies tend to retread the same formula as they do in its first two installments. The Hangover did it, Transformers did it, and so many other film franchises as well. What I can commend these Despicable Me films of doing is making sequels with narratives that never step on each other. They don’t repeat the same formula as its predecessors. What I do like about Illumination is that instead of reaching the bottom of the barrel to entertain its audience, they put some imagination and thoughts into their movies which I can say for Despicable Me 3.
Instead of doing the same plot over and over, they take the most tired formulas that seem lazy on paper and elevate the value with its humor and inventiveness. Despicable Me 2 centered on Gru becoming a Spy, but unlike sequels such as Cars 2 or Hoodwinked 2, it worked due to its humor, fast pace, and endless charm.
Here we have Gru finding out he has a long-lost twin brother. That formula never works in movies. One of the recent cases was Now You See Me 2 where Woody Harrelson had a flamboyant brother who was against everything he was doing. We all know how terrible that film went. Here, that narrative is fresh. It plays almost like Twins where Gru is Schwarzenegger and Dru is Danny Devito. Gru and his twin brother Dru share a ton of chemistry together. The movie centers on them a lot, and when it does, things are going on. A story is being told where Dru wants Gru to teach him how to be a real villain due to their deceased father being one of the greatest villains of all time and living up to his full villainous potential. Though that is one of four subplots going on, it's the one that thoroughly works. The film has a genuine build up to Dru’s introduction to where we see Gru goes through a string failures to a point he goes into a state of depression until he learns about having a long lost brother.
If you were to contrast the first Despicable Me film with this, you could easily see that the animation at Illumination Mac Gruff has gotten stronger over the years. The quality of the rendering has gotten better. Shoot, I’ll even go on to say the designs have finally found their niche. Honestly, Baltzaaar Bratt is one of the best-designed villains in the franchise to date. He has a figure. Every movement he makes is an 80s styled move, and it's consistently funny. Everything they do with him is hysterical from his lair’s production design to his clothing that is taken from the 80s. The movie goes on to parody 80s styled commercials in several scenes.
What makes the most of this movie far much better than the previous film, in my opinion, is Trey Parker as Balthazar Bratt. The film opens with his supervillain backstory that is far better established than every villain in any given superhero movie over the years. Not only is his backstory hysterical, but it makes sense. In the other movies, we had super villains being super villains just for the hell of it with no real sense of motivation or character. We saw slithers of it in Minions, but this finally gets that aspect right. We know why Bratt is bent on being a villain and we see his motivation for revenge. Though the film doesn’t focus on him for so long, he is there long enough to stand out than previous villains. He is truly one of the first fleshed out antagonist to date in the franchise. It also helps that Trey Parker does a fantastic job voicing him as well. This may be his only role in something that is family friendly (I mean the guy co-created South Park and does the majority of the voices), and yet he still manages to take the film to hilarious new heights. He doesn’t only voice Bratt but also voices the child version of himself. And yes, his adult voice is similar to Randy Marsh and his child's voice is both a combination of Stan and Cartman.
Want to hear something weird? The minions have a story arc. They’re not incorporated here to pad out the running time like previous films, but they have an interesting subplot that revolves around longing to be bad again. We have a minion named Mel who leads the pack against Gru who refuses to go back to villainy. Remember in their spin-off movie; they only work for villains, so you why they want to get back their edge. Some of the best scenes come from the minions. You see how they go to prison and when it is played out onscreen, it's as infectiously funny as you see in the commercials.
Some of the best things I tend to look forward to with these Despicable Me movies are the music. We always seem to have Pharrell Williams contractually obligated to provide music for these films, and I'll be damned if they're not enjoyable. The tunes Williams provide for the film incorporates perfectly for several scenes. Even if its preexisting tunes, the songs he has in this movie helps moving the pace along and adding levity to the comedic sequences. The entire Minions in prison sequence has his 2015 hit song Freedom playing in the background as they all snap their fingers to the beat like West Side Story. Just moments like that prove that his music isn't only infectious but also influential to the movie.
THE BAD: Though the film set up with plenty of subplots centering on so many characters, there isn’t much material of story. Like Despicable Me 2, the film is all over the place in its narrative. If you thought the previous film was messy in its story, this is far messier. You have more than four subplots set up, and not many of them tie in well together. It just has screenwriters Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio writing sitcom level material to provide a constrained 90-minute running time. The jokes are funny when it isn't trying so hard, but in accounts of story it just feels like they had twenty pages of material and said,
It's not just only colorful eye candy this time around for a lot of some action sequences are exciting and entertaining. The movie is doing something inventive every chance it gets and its all due to the creative animation team who know how to make the visual gags hysterical and the action scenes fun to watch. What I am tired of though it the generic big action sequence the third act always results to.
The final action sequence is your generical destructive summer blockbuster action scene that's bloated and over the top, and it's getting very banal at this point. The final ten minutes takes a huge page out of Minions in both its climax and conclusion. It teases an inevitable Despicable Me 4 in a very fun Spy vs. Spy type fashion, but it could've done something new with its last several minutes instead of taking the easy way out. Thankfully it doesn't end with a huge musical number like 1 and 2 but leaves on cliffhanger that says,
LAST STATEMENT: Though it is tired in the story department this third time around, what Despicable Me 3 lacks in the narrative the film makes up in creativity and silly fun for the whole family. Though it is a better sequel than its predecessor in quality and creativity, it never reaches the height of the original. Then again congrats Illumination for keeping a consistent rating from me for this franchise since 2010 which I can't say for most animated trilogies.
Rating: 3.5/5 | 74%
Super Scene: Prison Life
