If there was anything resembling actual stakes to the animated Despicable Me movies, that sense of meaning and urgency is long gone by Despicable Me 4, which comes off like a handful of episodes from the middle of a later season of a Despicable Me TV series haphazardly mashed together. Onetime supervillain Gru (Steve Carell) has long since reformed, settling into his life as a family man and villain-busting covert agent. There are no more lessons to learn or secrets to reveal, so Gru and his wife and kids just bumble through some forgettable misadventures on their way back to the status quo.
Then there are the Minions. The little yellow abominations are the real reason that there are now six movies in the extended Despicable Me franchise, and they've relegated Gru and his family to supporting status — at least in terms of pop-culture presence. After 2022's prequel Minions: The Rise of Gru, Despicable Me 4 reinstates Gru as the protagonist, although the Minions still have a substantial presence, including in a subplot that could be its own separate movie.
Part of the problem with Despicable Me 4 is that it's just a collection of multiple superfluous subplots, including the ostensible central story about Gru being targeted by his old nemesis Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell). The movie opens with Gru arresting Le Mal at their villain-school reunion, thanks to the help of his colleagues in the Anti-Villain League, but Le Mal quickly escapes and swears revenge on Gru. That threat is serious enough for the head of the AVL to pack Gru and his family off to a sort of witness protection program, but Le Mal disappears for long stretches and never seems particularly dangerous or menacing.
Instead, Gru, his wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig), their three adopted daughters and their infant son, Gru Jr., deal with various low-level conflicts in their new undercover lives as the Cunningham family. Gru attempts to make friends with the family's upper-crust new neighbors the Prescotts, but instead he's drawn into a heist scheme by their tween daughter Poppy (Joey King), an aspiring supervillain. Lucy and younger kids Agnes and Edith get one scene each for their respective forays into hairstyling and martial arts. Each arc takes up minimal screentime along the way to its perfunctory resolution.
Meanwhile, most of the Minions are packed off to AVL headquarters, where they participate in an experimental program that turns them into the superpowered (and very merchandise-friendly) Mega-Minions. Voiced by longtime series producer (and sometime writer and director) Pierre Coffin, the Minions spout their familiar gibberish, engage in childish pranks and fall down a lot. Giving them superpowers merely enables them to do all these things on a larger, more annoying scale, but their inexplicable popularity requires the filmmakers to find new ways to showcase their tiresome antics.
Everything about Despicable Me 4 feels worn-out and recycled, from the rote Minion mayhem to the bland family bonding to the wacky but ineffectual villain, whose fixation on cockroaches never reaches its grotesque potential. There's an extended "honey badger don't care" bit, plus a half-hearted version of the dance-party finale apparently required of all Hollywood animated movies, set to Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." The animation looks expensive without looking distinctive, and the character design is mostly hideous.
None of that may matter to kids who love to laugh at the Minions' pratfalls or adults who post Minions memes online, but the movie itself is barely above the level of sophistication and creativity of one of those memes. Gru and his increasingly unwieldy supporting cast — including characters whose existence is acknowledged and dismissed in a single line of dialogue — will keep coming back, taking on progressively more pointless missions and eventually being entirely overtaken by the relentless chattering Minions.
Despicable Me 4
