Movie Review: "Despicable Me 3: Fun but Forgettable"

(Two out of Five Stars) First, a disclaimer. I'm not the target audience for Despicable Me franchise. I'm not in the elementary school set and I'm not a huge fan of the purely slapstick approach to movie making. So my lack of enthusiasm for this film needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

But after watching Despicable Me 3, I felt despite being pretty unengaged that I could see a lot of promise for this franchise yet. With better storytelling, I could see a Despicable Me film that really could rise to the heights of the great family films that all different types of audiences could enjoy. Pixar and the Disney Animation studios (under Pixar's John Lasseter's leadership) have done it. Some recent examples that come to mind are: Zootopia and Inside Out. Both films were successful with audiences and critics of all ages. But before looking at the improvement areas of Despicable Me 3, let's look at the positives. I find the it's good to start with what works and that also provides clues to how the movie could attain greatness.

There is a section in the middle of the film where those goofy yellow Minions get stuck in an American Idol type TV show by accident and it looks like a disaster. The entire crowd is staring at them and they are feeling major stage fright. But surprisingly, they turn out to be really amazing and come up with a song and dance number that rivals the best of Busby Berkeley, the great 1930's film director and musical choreographer. Check out this clip to see what I'm talking about. It reminded of Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny and his satire of opera. Here's another link. The combination of slap stuck humor that any child can understand and the meticulous homage dance number is pretty amazing and joyful. But I wish that it all was like this. If they decided to really make the film a much more thorough satire or homage of a particular genre, it would have worked a lot better. Unfortunately most of the film really lacked the focus of this scene and just had a feel that the filmmakers wanted to throw everything at the audience and see what sticks. I think the key here is that the filmmakers could be more disciplined in figuring out what the film's main focus was.

Speaking of which, another major element missing was a real emotional through line for the story.

Supposedly the film is about Gru meeting his twin brother and being tempted to get back into criminal activities again. But strangely, this conflict never really reaches any real sense of depth. So the emotional stakes feel perpetually low. When you watch a succeessful family film like Inside Out or Zootopia, the filmmakers clearly establish the emotional stakes and follow thru on them. In Inside Out, Riley's entire life is up ended by her family's move to San Francisco and she desperately tries to find a way to escape her depressing situation. In Zootopia, Judy Hopps, a bunny cop wants to prove that she can overcome prejudice and prove she's a real cop. We identify with these characters struggles from the beginning and we are rivetted to the conflict to the end of the story because these characters are truly tested. In Despicable Me 3 it feels like the filmmakers really don't care about the emotional stakes in the film except in a superficial way. And so the film ends up pretty forgettable.

I hope if they decide to go for a fourth entry of the successful series, they really commit to this emotional through line and a genre homage/satire. If so, we could have that rare exception, a fourth sequel that is amazing!

Let me know if you agree or disagree and why in the comments section below!