DISAGREEABLE ‘ME’
Gru confronts annoying twin brother in unimaginative sequel
An installment so uninspired even the Minions aren't much fun, “Despicable Me 3” starts with a duo of fart jokes and heads metaphorically, if not anatomically, downward from there.
All I can say is: Bring back Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand).
Gru (Steve Carell) and Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig) are still married, and she wants to be a real mom, although she cannot say “no” to the couple's three cute, adopted daughters: Agnes (Nev Scharrel), Edith (Dana Gaier) and Margo (Miranda Cosgrove). After Gru and Lucy are fired from the Anti-Villain League (AVL) for not defeating washed-up, 1980s TV star turned supervillian Balthazar Bratt (“South Park's” Trey Parker), whose weapon of choice is self-inflating bubblegum, Gru discovers he has a twin brother named Dru (also Carell with slightly less Bela Lugosi accent). Gru and Lucy take the kids to (apologies to the Marx Brothers) Freedonia, where Dru lives, to visit his sibling's fabulously tacky, pink supermansion and meet their newfound uncle. Dru inherited the fortune of his and Gru's supervilliain father (Gru's mother informs him that the parents each chose a son after their divorce, and he was second choice). Dru's fortune now is based on a successful pig farm. Agnes yearns for a unicorn, but will settle for a pink piglet or (later) a white, one-horned goat. Dru, who has a full head of hair that Gru covets, is also a bore. He wants the self-consciously bald Gru to get back to his old supervillainous ways and take his wannabe twin, who doesn't have the supervillain gene, along for the ride. Gru decides he will retrieve a giant pink diamond stolen by Bratt, who dreams of destroying Hollywood with a death ray, by raiding Bratt's heavily armed supervillain base and using Dru as getaway driver. Are you ready for the “Freedonia cheese dance” or a “Blair Witch Project”like trip to Freedonia's “Crooked Woods” to find a unicorn? I zoned out. At this point, Chris Meledandri's animation company Illumination Entertainment has made so many “Despicable Me” and Minions films and spin-offs, it's like a perpetual-motion remake factory, which is the depressing new normal in the industry. Even Pixar has gotten into the act since Disney bought it. Directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud have been supplanted by animators Eric Guillon and Kyle Balda along with a third-billed Coffin as directors. Writers Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio have been brought back for a third time, so you perhaps cannot fault them for recycling the same bits.
Speaking of bits, the Minions compete on a “Sing”-like show performing a more nonsensical version of Gilbert and Sullivan's song “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General,” with a finale involving rolls of pink toilet paper, and then they land in prison, hilarious.
The 2-D computer-generated animation is as pleasing as ever, if also very familiar, and the action as before partakes of both the James Bond and Austin Powers franchises. Did Carell get paid twice for playing Gru and Dru? Dream on, Bullwinkle. (“Despicable Me 3” contains rude humor and a boring, unfunny plot.)