Movie Review: Despicable Me 3 (2017)

Synopsis: After once again failing to capture super villain Balthazar Bratt, Gru and Lucy are fired from the Anti-Villain League. Shortly after, Gru learns he has a twin brother, Dru, who hopes to convince him to return to a life of crime.

Who's in it? The animated movie uses voices from Steve Carrell, Kristin Wiig, Miranda Cosgrove, Trey Parker and Dana Gaier.


Review: Even though I'm an avid movie watcher, I very rarely watch movies at the theater. This is mostly because it has gotten expensive to the point very few movies are worth the money.

One of the exceptions to this is around my daughters' birthdays, when my wife and I take them out for a family film every year. And, since this tradition started with Despicable Me when it came out in 2010, we have made sure to watch all the sequels (including Minions) at the theater too. As a result of this, we decided to continue that tradition with Despicable Me 3 last night.

Since we enjoyed all the previous films, we were all looking forward to seeing this movie. Unfortunately, after watching it, I have to say I was kind of disappointed by it.

I think the biggest problem with this movie is it was trying to do too many things at once. There were several storylines. Gru (Carrell) meeting his twin brother (also Carrell). Gru trying to defeat Bratt (Parker), Lucy (Wiig) trying to figure out the whole motherhood thing with Gru's adopted daughters and the Minions (fed up with not being villains any more) quitting and trying to go out on their own. Considering the film was only about 90 minutes in length, there just wasn't enough movie to give each the proper amount of time.

This is especially true of the Minions, who got a surprisingly limited amount of screen time. Considering they are often the funniest thing in these movies, it was disappointing to see them in such a limited capacity, especially since their time in prison looked like it had a lot of potential.

I also was somewhat disappointed with the introduction of Dru. When I saw the previews, I figured he would end up being the main bad guy in the movie and still think that would have been the best approach, especially if he teamed up with Bratt. Instead, the movie took a different direction and had him team up with Gru. Anytime the good guy has a 3-to-1 advantage over the bad guy (large robot or not), it just isn't as good. Of course, to be fair, since the movie was trying to do so much in such a short amount of time, there really wasn't an opportunity to develop something like that.

Final Opinion: The movie has some funny moments. But, it definitely isn't as good as the films that preceded it and I left the theater feeling as though I didn't get my money's worth.

My Grade: C

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