DESPICABLE ME 3

released OuT NOW! 2017 | u | 90 minutes

Directors Kyle Balda, Pierre Coffin, eric Guillon

Cast steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Trey Parker, Pierre Coffin

You wouldn’t think that a film about a retired supervillain, his wife, three uber-adorable kids and a bunch of yellow Minions could be influenced by something as leftfield as Guardians Of The Galaxy, but Despicable Me 3 has the soundtrack to prove it. The film actually writes iconic tunes – from Michael Jackson’s “Bad” to a-ha’s “Take On Me” – into the script; there’s even a moment featuring a cassette tape. Hopefully kids too young to see Guardians will be able to figure out what one does...

It all makes perfect sense, however, because the bad guy for this third adventure is the grown-up child star of an ’80s TV show who wants to destroy Hollywood for dumping him once he hit puberty. Gru (Steve Carell) must bring him down – although the news that he has a twin brother, Dru, sends him off to do some familial bonding first. Meanwhile, the Minions have larks and almost steal the film with a bizarrely out-ofplace Gilbert and Sullivan song.

On the downside, some of the inventiveness of the previous two films is missing from the script – nothing new has been built upon the original format, which seems a shame – and Gru seems oddly subdued, despite the fact there are effectively two of him now. However, the gags are still as fast and furious as ever, and the ’80s riffs certainly keep things lively. Jolly good fun. Jayne Nelson