Thanks to Universal Pictures, MKAU Gaming was invited to see the premiere of Despicable Me 4, created by the team over at Illumination. The movie continues the story of Gru (Steve Carell), his wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig), and his three adopted daughters, Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier), and Agnes (Madison Skyy Polan), while introducing the newest edition to the family, Gru Junior. Gru and the family are forced into hiding after Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell), a villain previously arrested by the villain-turned-crime-fighter, alongside his wife and partner in crime Valentina (Sofia Vergara), swore revenge on Gru.

Opening with scenes of a sports car drifting its way up a windy mountain path that leads to a large castle-like building, we learn of the school Gru and Maxime attended in their youth – a school where students learn the ways of being a supervillain. After some harsh banter between Gru and Maxime, Gru reveals he is still an agent for AVL, the Anti-Villian League, introduced alongside Gru’s love interest Lucy in Despicable Me 2.

After he helps arrest Maxime, he returns home to be a father to his three girls. This is where we first see the newly added family member, Gru Jr. who takes after Gru in every aspect, except for a single strand of orange hair. The former AVL leader, Silas Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan), makes a return as he arrives to inform Gru and his family that Maxime has escaped from prison and sworn revenge. The AVL sets up a safe house for Gru, the family, and our favourite three minions, while the rest are taken to AVL Headquarters to help test out equipment and new methods in the works.

While the family struggles to adapt to their new names and cover stories, it quickly goes out the window when the neighbour’s daughter, Poppy (Joey King), takes an interest in Gru. She knows who he is and blackmails him into helping with her first heist.

The target? His former School mascot, a honey badger. As the story unfolds for Gru and the family, we get to see what the rest of the Minions are up to; being their wacky selves testing out items for the AVL.

Silas Ramsbottom gathers them all together and delivers a speech on how they need the bravest and strongest of them to take the step in the next direction for the AVL. With the mass taking a step back, five unaware Minions are thanked for volunteering before being given a super serum.

A small intermission gives us a superhero origin moment, following the five Minions as they become Mega Minions, each with powers like super strength, the ability to stretch, or optic eye-blasts, complete with a short montage of our newest heroes, the Mega Minions, saving the day… as best as a Minion can. Of course, we all know they end up causing more mayhem than they prevent, but we do get a funny Spider-Man 2 parody, involving a stretching Minion and a runaway train. Thankfully, they didn’t fall back on Minion humour as often as they did during the last two movies. They were more of a side story, letting Gru, Lucy, and the rest of the family maintain the spotlight.

While the movie got plenty of laughs from the younger audience members, there were moments when parents were laughing at the subtle jokes aimed towards an older audience. After binge-watching the first three movies, I was caught up for this instalment but still had no idea what to expect.

The characters are still as charming as ever, though I would have liked to have seen the group age a little, perhaps showing us how Gru and Lucy would deal with a teenage Margo alongside a villain with a vendetta.

I feel like it would have given more character development, particularly for the girls – we’ve seen Gru go from villain to father to Secret Agent, but the development felt halted on them.

There were times when the story seemed to fall over itself, such as Maxime planning to use cockroaches to rule the world, alongside carrying out his plans for revenge. We briefly see his army of ‘roaches, but they are never brought up again and don’t serve any purpose in his plans for revenge.

Other than trying to rebrand himself as the Cockroach Man, it just felt lazy compared to the last villains Gru faces. At least Balthazar Bratt, the former kids’ show child star-come-super villain from Despicable Me 3, used the same catchphrase, outfits, music style and plans from his youth as an adult and offered a more consistent bad guy.

If you are looking to take the kids to the cinema during the upcoming school holidays, Despicable Me 4 is the perfect family flick. The Minions take a small step back as our favourite characters offer something for everyone, and Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, and the rest of the gang deliver the well-written humour as our favourite hilariously dysfunctional family.

The Mega Minions offer short breaks from the main story, and I wouldn’t be surprised if another minion spin-off movie followed their funny antics and heroic adventures. Thank you again to Universal Pictures for inviting us to the pre-screening.

Written by: Shane Walsh