It feels a little like they’ve given up on trying to have a plot in this sixth instalment in the series (if you count the two Minions spin-off movies), but the various interludes involving the lovable Minions still manage to keep this entertaining enough throughout.

Premise: When rival villain Maxime Le Mal (Wil Ferrell) vows to seek vengeance on Gru (Steve Carell) and his family, the Anti-Villain League give them all new identities in witness protection, and recruit the Minions for a secret project.

Review:

I have a soft spot for the Despicable Me films, and I particularly enjoyed the second and third ones – but although I enjoyed 2022’s Minions: The Rise of Gru more than the first Minions film from 2015 (which for me didn’t really work without Gru in the mix), I still felt it was a bit incoherent in places and was effectively just an excuse to string together a series of comedy sketches involving the Minions.

Unfortunately, the same can very much be said for Despicable Me 4, which has perhaps the flimsiest of the plots in any of these films. The premise is that Gru (Steve Carell), Lucy (Kristen Wiig) and their kids (Margo, Edith, Agnes and new baby, Gru Junior) are put into witness protection and given new identities to keep them safe after Gru’s childhood rival Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell) escapes from prison and comes looking for revenge. But in comparison with the previous Despicable Me movies, this film doesn’t really go anywhere with that concept or give most of its returning characters anything to do.

“…many subplots are started but then go nowhere…”

When you think that Despicable Me 3 back in 2017 managed to successfully juggle about five different plot threads, it’s disappointing that Despicable Me 4 could barely make one plot thread work successfully. Many subplots are started but then go nowhere – Lucy’s new identity involves her posing as a hairdresser, but after a couple of scenes showing how bad she is, there’s no payoff or conclusion. There’s a suggestion that Margo (Miranda Cosgrove) is being bullied at her new school, but that plot thread is then ignored, while Edith gets one scene at a karate dojo before disappearing for the rest of the movie. Agnes, who previously has been one of the comedy highlights of the series, gets almost nothing to do other than miss her pet ‘unicorn’ who can’t follow the family into witness protection.

The decision not to give Lucy, Margo, Edith or Agnes any decent storylines seems even more surprising because the writers decided to introduce two new characters who get far more screentime than the returning ones. The first is the new baby, Gru Junior, who feels like an echo of Jack-Jack from The Incredibles movies, but who at least is responsible for some great sight gags with the Minions. The second new character is Gru’s neighbour Poppy Prescott – but with no disrespect to Joey King (who does a perfectly good job playing the character) Poppy feels like she was only included to give Gru an excuse to carry out a mid-movie heist in the second act. There’s the nub of an interesting idea with Poppy’s character, but it’s one that’s never really explored in any depth.

“…despite all the film’s flaws, the Minions are genuinely funny whenever they’re on screen…”

Meanwhile, although Will Ferrell does a great job of adding a bit of flair to the new villain Maxime Le Mal, the character doesn’t have anywhere near the same impact as the previous villains in the series, and poor Sofía Vergara is given literally nothing to do as Maxime’s femme fatale girlfriend, Valentina. Steve Carell remains as entertaining as ever as Gru, but even his plot threads are largely unsatisfying – I felt the climax of the film was particularly underwhelming, and left me thinking “is that it?”.

And yet ... despite all these objective flaws in the film, it did keep me (mildly) amused throughout, because there’s no escaping the fact that the Minions are genuinely funny whenever they’re on screen. From their antics at Gru’s school reunion, to their babysitting efforts, to a long-running gag about a vending machine, the Minions are entertaining in each of their appearances in the movie, even if they rarely impact the actual plot.

“…an entertaining (if undemanding) 95 minutes despites its many flaws…”

In fact, as if to highlight just how inconsequential the Minions are to the actual storyline in Despicable Me 4, all but three of them are recruited by the Anti-Villain League for an experiment to give them superpowers, which ultimately leads to the creation of the “Mega-Minions” ... but then the Mega-Minions play no real part in the finale of the movie, which is an odd decision to say the least.

All in all, although it feels like most of the cast have nothing to do in this latest instalment, the final scenes (without getting into spoilers) do feel like a nostalgic ‘victory lap’ for a series that has been an unexpected global phenomena, and between the goodwill the franchise has generated and the comedy antics of the Minions themselves, Despicable Me 4 was an entertaining (if undemanding) 95 minutes despites its many flaws.