What is Despicable Me 4 about?
Despicable Me 4 cobbles together a few ideas. Like dealing with a new identity, confronting your past, karma, and, maybe most importantly, toddler favoritism. It also has Minion-focused subplot that touches on superhero stories.
Cast
- Felonious Gru – Steve Carell
- Lucy Wilde – Kristen Wiig
- Margo – Miranda Cosgrove
- Edith – Dana Gaier
- Agnes – Madison Polan
- Maxime Le Mal – Will Ferrell
- Valentina – Sofía Vergara
- Silas Ramsbottom – Steve Coogan
- Poppy Prescott – Joey King
- Perry Prescott – Stephen Colbert
- Patsy Prescott – Chloe Fineman
- Minions – Pierre Coffin
- Principal Übelschlecht – Chris Renaud
- Written by – Mike White | Ken Daurio
- Directed by – Chris Renaud
Bonding with your child
Despicable Me 4 might actually be cathartic for some parents. Baby favoritism is a really common thing that doesn’t get all that much attention in film. You can know that, logically, it’s a matter of circumstances. The baby is a baby, afterall. If one parent is home while the other works, that can lead to one-sided bonding that can take some time to overcome. But it’s crazy because the reverse can also be true—the parent who works is a novelty and so the baby prefers them. It’s really hard to predict. And challenging to not take somewhat personally, even when you know it’s not in any way personal.
So Gru’s arc with Junior is about overcoming that distance. The final act actually defamiliarizes this. You can view Maxime stealing Junior as symbolizing the emotional distance between father and son. And turning Junior into part-cockroach as embodying the fear that your child won’t ever connect with you and will find other parental-figures. In fighting Maxime, Gru’s actually fighting for the love of his son. Which he finally wins.
Identity
I’m not sure how well Despicable Me 4 actually develops this theme. But there’s something to the idea of identity. The movie opens with Gru returning to the Lycée Pas Bon School of Villainy. Gru was, originally, a supervillain. But eventually became a good guy. Then an AVL agent. So part of the movie is Gru still wrestling with his villainous past in the forms of his old school rival, his old principal, as well as Poppy forcing him to teach her evil ways.
And then with the family going into witness protection, they all take on new identities. And we see how difficult that is for them. Lucy can’t be a hairdresser. Agnes refuses to say her new name because she believes it’s lying.
You have the five Minions who become Mega Minions and take on entirely new identities and interests—ranching, beekeeping, cheese mongering, gambling, and beach.
Maxime is part roach and so identifies as more than just a human. Poppy pretends to be a regular teenage girl but is actually a villain-in-training.
It’s one of the film’s main motifs. It’s just not actively developed in a meaningful way that allows me (or anyone?) to easily point to an “intended” reading.
Confronting your past and karma
There’s something to Gru’s relationship with his past. For example, Maxime has a personal vendetta against Gru not only because Gru arrests him but because of their time as classmates. We get the whole story and flashback about Gru stealing Maxime’s 9th grade talent show song, “Karma Chameleon” by Culture Club.
So where other villains Gru has arrested haven’t made things so personal, Maxime has this history with Gru, this sense of negative karma, that inspires him to really, really, really pursue retribution.
At the very end, Gru visits Maxime in prison and clears the air—he did steal the song. Instead of that leading to further conflict, they actually bond over it. Maxime ends their back and forth with the words “mon ami”, which translate to “my friend”. That can be said in a sarcastic way, of course, but in this case it’s actually a sign of these rivals actually becoming friendly. Which is why the next scene is them performing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” as a duet at a prison talent show. So by clearing the air, Gru actually gains a friend.
There’s also a contrast with Gru’s life as chet. He tried to befriend Poppy’s dad, Perry. But it was forced. The two men actually had nothing in common. And when Gru goes to the country club, he doesn’t really fit in with the people there. But he’s right at home in the prison with all the villains. Even though he’s good now, a dad now, when he’s true to himself and not pretending to be someone he’s not, when he embraces his past, he’s more at home and alive.
A note on the writing
Despicable Me 4 is one of the most poorly written movies I’ve watched in a while. And not just because it’s a movie for kids. For example, the opening scene is Gru arresting Maxime. Then in the next scene, Maxime breaks out of jail and declares he’s coming after Gru. That’s established less than 12 minutes into the movie. Maxime doesn’t actually have any interaction with Gru or Gru’s family until over an hour later at the 73-minute mark. That’s when he takes Junior. The first time Maxime and Gru actually share a scene is at 75 minutes. The fight is done at 80 minutes. The main plot concludes at 86.
So even though the Gru and Maxime conflict is what begins and ends the film, it only makes up around 10 minutes of screen-time. For long stretches, Maxime’s not even part of, relevant to, or necessary for what’s happening. That renders the main antagonist as a plot-device rather than an integral part of the story. The subplot of Lucy trying to be a hairdresser and the fallout with her first client takes up almost as much time.
It’s the same thing with the Mega Minions. It’s a neat idea, these superhero Minions. But they have one scene where they cause some mayhem in the Minion cafeteria. Another brief scene where they each try to be heroic out in the world (and fail). Then at the very end, they show up to run over Maxime. But, at that point, Maxime’s already defeated. So the subplot with the Mega Minions has literally no connection to or bearing on the main story with Gru.
At least in something like Minions: The Rise of Gru, the karate training the Minions undergo is a pivotal part of the film’s final act. But Despicable Me 4 couldn’t even be bothered to weave the stories together in a more meaningful way.
Overall, it felt like a lot of piecing together market research suggestions and studio demands rather than a legitimate effort to tell a coherent story for all-ages.
