Despicable Me 3 Revisit: Oh Brother, You Are Not So Despicable as Well
Copyright © Universal Pictures, Illumination
Title: Despicable Me 3
Director: Pierre Coffin, Kyle Balda
Sequel to: Despicable Me 2 (2013)
Release Date: June 30, 2017
Unlike the previous two Despicable Me reviews, this did not require a rewatch due to how the sequel could be easily memorized in a flash. Even from the first time watching the movie in the theater, its story is more straightforward to remember. Personally, this is the first time reviewing a movie straight ahead thanks to the basic understanding. As the revisit series returns to its current work, the film reviewed for today is Despicable Me 3, the threequel to the Despicable Me franchise by Illumination! Back in June 2017, the movie received a mixed recognition but it also included a lot of financial success, thanks to the said franchise being the highest-grossing animated film franchise ever. Worldwide, the gross is $1.035 billion which places the film at #4 of the highest-grossing films of that year. Even better, it was placed at #4 of the highest-grossing animated films ever. As for the reception, it did not end up as good as expected. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie got a Tomatometer of 58% plus a lower Audience Score of 53%, making this a low for its reception. While on IMDb, the score is 6.2/10.0. Finally, going to Metacritic, the Metascore is 49 and the User Score is 5.0, which does mark this movie as "loved and hated" by most people. Even by standing about on the same level as Minions or the like, Despicable Me 3 is still enough to continue working as a spy.
Summary
Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker), a former child star of the 1980s, is the supervillain who is looking to exact revenge on everyone. Meanwhile, the new boss in control of the Anti-Villain League fires Gru (Steve Carrell), plus Lucy (Kristen Wiig), even after deciding to leave his villain life behind. When the family travels to Freedonia, Gru meets his long-lost brother, Dru (Steve Carrell), who he makes an unexpected alliance with to stop Bratt once and for all.
Reasons
What Despicable Me 3 did the most with is the upgraded animation, strong characters, and warm sentimentality. Most big-hit animation companies, particularly Illumination, get better at animating their movies. Notably, the movements are more smoother and much more lively, along with the more colorful settings that have a lot of detail and referencing. The character designs are still as good, especially the designs for the new characters, which look iconic. Speaking of which, the characters are still as likable and entertaining as they were in the previous installments. Even when landing on retirement, Gru (Steve Carrell) was given solid growth throughout his mission. The same can be said for Lucy (Kristen Wiig) albeit was not really involved much until the final act. Even if he is the overused long-lost sibling trope, Dru (Steve Carrell), is a solid character and comic relief. The daughters of Gru family, Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier), and Agnes (Nev Scharrel), are still as entertaining except with more wholesome interactions between each other. The supervillain, Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker), stole the show in the movie, thanks to Parker's performance of him and his concept of being an 80s-themed villain. Finally, the Minions (Pierre Coffin), keep on going with serving their funny jokes and charm. Even better, they do not appear as much in order for the movie to focus on the stories of the main characters instead. Going to something similar, the character chemistry is another strong upgrade for this sequel. For the most part, Gru and Dru's chemistry is funny to watch throughout. It shows to kids how siblings would work like with the rivalry and reunion states of the relationship. Besides just being props for the screentime, the daughters interact with each other more, especially compared to the previous films featuring them. As said, they are wholesome but they are also hilarious sometimes.
Like with most hated animated movies ever, Despicable Me 3 has mixed blends of humor, along with the soundtrack and voice-acting. The majority of the jokes are still as hilarious as the predecessors. On the other hand, the minority are more likely to be labeled as weird in a corny way. Notwithstanding how the toilet humor has been reduced, some of them can be even straight-up absurd. For the other two qualities, they are mostly of good but there are some bad parts that needs to be addressed. From the soundtrack, Pharrell Williams is still going great with the originally-written songs, like "Yellow Light" and "There's Something Special" to be used in the movie. The 1980s songs were a perfect touch for the scenes Bratt appears in, mostly the dance battles. Because of that, this makes the soundtrack more enjoyable. However, the movie tends to reuse songs from the previous movies, which can get repetitive afterwards. In this franchise's case, this was done for the third time. Just like with the soundtrack, the voice-acting is predominantly great, especially Carrell as Gru (plus Dru) and Parker as Balthazar Bratt to a large extent. One thing that would be weak is how Agnes' new voice actress provided a rather weak performance than her previous actress did. Well, Scharrel was okay on her voice acting but Fisher or any other child actress would have still fit at the time.
As of being one of the weakest films of the franchise, Despicable Me 3 failed with its jumbled story, time logic, and its cliché pathway. To get the big diamond out of the bag, the movie mostly consists of the long-lost sibling cliché, which is a highly overused trope seen in many other animated movies. In addition, the story is all over the place as it jumps from one character plot to the next, making it puzzling on who the movie is even going to focus on. Thankfully, it is not that hard to follow, since they are all connected to Gru's big task in their own way. Another thing that is confusing is the time logic. Not only does this movie change the family history for Gru. Illumination decides to keep the girls the same by making them not grow up. It might make the film more interesting if the movie actually has them aging up due to how much they have come. Last up, the movie has a tendency to rely on clichés for their story. Besides the long-lost sibling plotline for the story, there are some other clichés that were used. Luckily, they are not important to the whole movie, though. This makes way for the movie to still be original despite using the overused plotline.
Conclusion
Although it is one of the weakest films of its franchise, Despicable Me 3 has enough strengths to not be fired from its spy career. First off, the animation, as well as the characters and chemistry, continue to upgrade after the movie's predecessors did so. What needs to be fixed is not only the clichéd story but also addressing the logic and removing clichés that do not make much sense. Even if there is the toilet humor being decent, the movie might need to make some rather original ones for that category. Soundtrack and voice-acting are mostly fine but they could use some minor tweaks. This may not be a bad pick for an anti-hero movie night but please note that there are some other ones that are far more despicable.
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