MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological* I'd like to imagine Universal and Illumination allowing this fourth Gru-venture to be the last installment with the characters. However, the box office on Four was almost as impressive as the one for Three (despite Three's fall-off in quality), so it's likely that there will be more Despicable Movies down the road. But at least this one went back to the original template from the first film: imagining the origins of super-villainy as stemming purely from childhood frustrations.
In contrast to the mediocrity of Three's Balthazar Bratt, this time Gru (Steve Carell), his wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig), and their three girls must combat a villain with connections to Gru's own history. In Gru's high school years, he attended an institution devoted to turning out super-villains, Lycee Pas Bon ("High School of Evil" by one translation), and Young Gru formed a one-upmanship antagonism with fellow student Maxime Le Mal. As an adult working for the Anti-Villain League, Gru uses his status to infiltrate an alumnus party for the Lycee, intending to capture the adult Maxime (Will Farrell) for the AVL. With the help of Lucy, Gru succeeds, though the action here is less amusing than the concatenation of evildoers standing around doing the high school reunion thing. However, almost as soon as Maxime's captured, he escapes, issuing dire threats against Gru and his whole family-- which, by the bye, now includes the infant son of Gru and Lucy. The AVL can't find Maxime, so Gru's family must seek the security of a witness protection program, transferring them to a new community, under contrived new names. This situation at least allowed for some varied comical situations, though as other critics observed, the script stuffed the story with too many minor characters of little consequence-- probably to instill suspense as to who was eventually going to "out" Gru's family and betray them to Maxime.
Without question, the worst schtick is that of the baby, Gru Junior. Gru Jr. loves his mother Lucy without reserve but seems to hate Gru no matter what the reformed villain does. This remains a lame schtick because as soon as I saw it begin, I knew that no feel-good cartoon movie was going to end with a baby despising his father, and as I predicted, at the eleventh hour Gru Junior overcomes his personal animus. Ho hum. Slightly more promising is a plot-thread in which a middle-school neighbor girl identifies her new neighbor as the former supervillain Felonious Gru. She then blackmails Gru into helping her commit a silly petty crime. But this contrivance worked better for me because it shows that the creators knew they needed to force the main character back into his criminal mode to keep his basic appeal, no matter how thoroughly he converted to the side of the angels. Again, DESPICABLE #4 would make a great conclusion for a pleasant if lightweight cartoon-series, but I don't imagine things will work out that way.
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