Gru has an evil twin Dru? How despicably silly!
There hasn’t been much love in the U.S. reviews for this energetic computer-animated comedy, and it’s true enough that Despicable Me 2 felt like the end of the road, especially once its best characters, those cute but naughty little Minions, branched out with a terrific 2015 spin-off of their own.
But here we are again, and actually I quite enjoyed the rampant zaniness of Despicable Me 3. This time, reformed baddie Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) is expelled from the Anti-Villain League for failing to capture Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker), a former child actor whose show was cancelled when he got spots.
he is now the world’s most fiendish super-villain, a master of
disguise who has made a deadly weapon out of bubblegum. As revenge for the destruction of his acting career, he plots to raze Hollywood to the ground.
Meanwhile, Gru’s wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig) has been kicked out of the AVL too, so now they must foil Bratt as freelance operatives. But the project is complicated when Gru is contacted by the twin brother, he never knew he had. His mother (Julie Andrews, would you believe) confirms the existence of his twin, and soon he is whisked off to meet Dru, ( also Carell), who has villainous ambitions of his own.
It’s all extremely silly, nicely animated, and with just enough funny one-liners (Gru must live with the knowledge that ‘Dad died of disappointment when I was born’) to entertain grown-ups as well as children.