Gru’s life seems perfectly complete with Lucy, his three girls and a new baby. Until arch nemesis Maxime Le Mal comes crashing into his life turning Gru’s world upside down.
From Illumination studios who gave us the (mostly) loved ‘Despicable Me’ film series and the two lesser ‘Minions’ spin-offs, comes another delightful adventure into the life of the Felonious Gru Snr, played of course by the one and only Steve Carrell. With the franchise so far grossing over $5 billion worldwide, and with talks of a fifth instalment, ‘DM4’ – which was in production for more than 6 years – once again has a stellar cast of characters and actors who if anything are growing more and more into their parts.
Reprising the roles of Gru’s adoptive children Margo and Edith (played by Miranda Cosgrove and Dana Gaier respectively) their voices thankfully still fit the characters despite the fact they are now twice their ages from the original film, yet it still works beautifully. Kristen Wiig also returns to voice Lucy, but the role of young Agnes now requires a third actress played this time by Madison Skyy Polan in her first cinematic role. Her delightful cries of joy will have many kids leaving the cinema happily repeating, “It’s a vending machine!” for days to come.
With every heroes’ story comes the need for an arch nemesis, enter Will Ferrell as Maxime Le Mal’s ‘Insect Man’, whose own DNA experimentation with cockroaches has created a villain who cannot be squashed or even killed. Alongside him is his femme fatale girlfriend Valentina played by another underused actor Sofia Vergara. Maxime’s appearance threatens Gru’s family and so they reluctantly move undercover to a town called Mayflower, to begin a new life with new names and identities. Sighting gorgeous houses along the road they of course are shown the smallest, least family appealing home that is AVL (anti-villain league) approved. It’s here the family meet their new neighbours and their teenage daughter Poppy (played by Joey King), who aspires to be a villain just like Gru used to be.
With a purposefully shorter run time for the younger audience, there sadly seems to be some story overcrowding and obvious underuse of great characters here… and Poppy’s character suffers from this. Poppy’s need to enrol in the Lycée Pas Bon ‘villain’ school, means she requires the help of Gru and family to steal Lenny, the honey badger school mascot and this is where her character shines. What Joey has also brought to the role is an energy that makes this character far more three dimensional and she will hopefully return in upcoming ‘DM’ films. BTW, If you were wondering why there were no girl Minions, it was because the original ‘Despicable Me’ film director and voice of the Minions, Pierre Coffin thought them too stupid to ever be girls.
With Despicable Me 5 a joyous inevitability, according to Illumination it will only ever be written if they can come up with a fresh new story. Poppy will hopefully return in a greater role, possibly growing into a future villain with greater depth and screen time. Although filled with many great jokes, Despicable Me 4 doesn’t visually jump off the screen in the way the studio’s other films like ‘Migration’ and ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ did, although the animation quality is still there. What does work is the sheer fun Gru’s girls and the Minions have throughout which makes it worth the watch.
Author: Piers, Maidstone Store
