Movie Review: Despicable Me 3

I must have had a lot of time on my hands this weekend. There was a showing of this pretty early yesterday, so I thought, I have been meaning to see this and just haven’t gotten to it. In all honesty, this is something that is fun, but hasn’t really built on the brand too much. In typical serial fashion, Gru discovers that he’s got a brother and the brother wants to be a super villain. Wackiness pretty much ensues shortly thereafter. I’m not sure I’d say any of this is a SPOILER, but the movie is pretty predictable, and yet I still found it fun. After watching the standalone Minion movie, I can see why their part has been minimized here. Without Gru, or even the kids, the minions are tough to figure out.

The movie starts off with Gru being a good guy now, working with his wife, whose name I’ve already forgotten (Kristen Wiig does the voice). They get outsmarted by a 1980’s villain and from that point on it really starts to feel more episodic vs. a movie. Shortly after getting fired Gru is approached by a man who says he has a twin brother that he never knew about. Turns out the brother is a failure at being a villain, while Gru is not. It was the wrong child-swap, I guess. I have to be honest, I sort of glazed over a bit after that. 

With respect to the Hina Test, this gets a hard fail. There were pretty much only white people in the movie (or European of questionable descent) and the female characters were there mostly to move the plot forward, save the youngest kid finding a unicorn. I don’t understand why it would have been so hard to add a little bit of racial diversity to an animated movie. I get that Despicable Me is about Gru, but he’s married and has three daughters, why aren’t they more at the forefront?

Was I amused? Sure. Was it the best movie ever? No. There were moments of heart, like Margo and the step-mom having a moment, or the littlest kid finding a goat with one horn (in her mind, a unicorn), but overall it was just amusing, but it didn’t have much staying power. For $7, it was worth watching.