Here, we’re allowed to “AFor the moment, both the filmmakers and audience remain invested, which allows writers Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul (who’ve been with the series since the beginning) to splinter the story into half a dozen strands. While these movies are allowed to be as silly as they like, what made them so delightful was the fact the filmmakers took the underlying sentiment seriously, treating even those warm-fuzzy family moments with sincerity. This ever-so-slight change in tone may be too discreet for “Despicable Me” fans to pick up on, but upon closer inspection, it represents a dangerous shift toward ironic detachment. But when he runs the tape of an old episode for ideas, the joke is meant to be how hopelessly corny it all was, right down to his tired “I’ve been a bad boy!” tagline. A relic of the ’80s, when everyone knew him from a show called “Evil Bratt,” Balthazar wears shoulder pads and pump sneakers, tossing bubble-gum bombs and break-dancing his way through heists. Where the first “Despicable Me” movie seemed to be winking at the audience in open acknowledgement of what it was stealing from other sources, this third installment is all but rolling its eyes at us (as in a lame bit where Gru and Dru pretend to be one another, à la “Parent Trap,” knowing full well that they’re the only ones who find it funny).Īlong the same lines, the running gag about the movie’s new villain - a disgruntled former child star named Balthazar Bratt (voiced by “South Park” co-creator Trey Parker) - centers on how out-of-touch he is with the audience. It should be noted that the surprise-twin thing is the kind of device that surely makes even soap-opera writers blush - but then, that’s half the joke in a franchise that’s self-aware enough to realize that it’s taking tired clichés and turning them upside-down and inside-out. Meanwhile, the central narrative concerns Gru’s discovery of Dru (both voiced by Carell, though the latter’s accent assumes an even weirder, Tommy Wiseau-like lilt). And yet, like the acorn-obsessed Scrat in the “Ice Age” movies, the Minions’ scenes have broken off from the main storyline, their antics now unfolding as little added-value vignettes in parallel to the plot at hand. They’re the irreverent comic relief in a series that’s robustly funny in its own right. In theory, the Minions are the reason these movies make millions, and it should tell you something that the little yellow guys succeed in delivering two fart jokes before the Illumination logo has even cleared the screen. Nefario spends the movie frozen in carbonite, which is a step in the right direction.) (Nota bene: Whether out of wisdom or contract considerations, Russell Brand’s Dr. And lest you assume that “ Despicable Me 3” somehow marks the poignant finale of a predetermined trilogy (one that has already earned more than $1.5 billion worldwide, not counting merchandising or the “Minions” movie’s additional billion), think again: The movie wraps in the most open-ended way possible, paving the way for a seemingly infinite number of sequels - which could actually be the sense in which this series most resembles the Bond movies.īut here’s a word of advice for the talented folks at Illumination that might have come in handy before they undertook this outing: As happened with “Shrek” and various other cartoon franchises before it, Gru’s ensemble is starting to feel a bit bloated, and before moving forward, the studio might want to shed a few characters, starting - blasphemy of blasphemies! - with the Minions, who now officially have Nothing To Do. The fact that Gru has lost his job with the Anti-Villain League and that Dru desperately wants to get into the villainy racket is mostly just incidental in a series that’s starting to feel less like 007 and more like “The Brady Bunch” with every outing. And now, in what might have been titled “Predictable Me 3,” Gru discovers his long-lost twin brother, Dru, giving the superficially surly character even more reasons for group hugs. Then, in the sequel, Gru met soul mate Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig) and got hitched. In the original, reformed super-villain Gru (Steve Carell) agrees to reprioritize his life around his three newly adopted daughters. On the surface, the “Despicable Me” cartoons appear to be sendups of the James Bond franchise, but beneath that slick, spoofy exterior, they’re really marshmallow-centered affirmations of good old-fashioned family values.
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