Despicable M3

The Despicable Me series palpably runs out of steam with this repetitive and somewhat tedious entry, with the narrative following Steve Carell’s Gru as he teams up with his previously-unknown twin brother to take down a supervillain. The degree to which Despicable M3 fizzles out is fairly disappointing given the strength of its opening stretch, as filmmakers Kyle Balda, Pierre Coffin, and Eric Guillon kick the proceedings off with a very entertaining sequence detailing Gru’s first encounter with Trey Parker’s Balthazar Bratt – with the energetic nature of this sequence ultimately not even remotely indicative of all that follows. It’s only as the picture segues into its progressively uninteresting midsection that one’s interest begins to flag, as the twin-brother storyline, though initially promising, eventually reveals itself as pointless and aggressively conventional (ie it all exists so Gru can learn a valuable lesson about family). There’s little doubt, as well, that the less-than-engrossing atmosphere is compounded by unusually underwhelming subplots, with the movie’s expected emphasis on the Minions’ exploits, generally a highlight in these films, falling distressingly flat. (And this is to say nothing of the ineffectiveness of Gru’s daughters’ hopelessly dull search for a unicorn.) The climactic stretch is far too frenetic and over the top to reverse the film’s descent into irrelevance, ultimately, and one finally can’t help but hope that this marks the end of Gru’s cinematic adventures.

** out of ****