tek's rating: ¾

Despicable Me 3 (PG)
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I liked this less than the first two "Despicable Me" movies, and while I rated it slightly higher than the "Minions" movie, I'm not actually sure which movie I liked more. Either way, I found this movie enjoyable enough.

Gru and Lucy are now married, and working as partners for the AVL. They're sent on a mission to stop a supervillain named Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker), who used to be a child TV star in the 1980s, from stealing a huge diamond. They manage to get the diamond away from Bratt, but because they let him escape, the new director of the AVL, Valerie Da Vinci, fires them. Soon after that, Gru learns in the newspaper that Bratt had re-stolen the diamond. Gru is then contacted by a man named Fritz, who works for his twin brother, Dru, who lives in the country of Freedonia (where everyone has the same accent as Gru). Gru is shocked to learn that he has a brother (their parents had separated them Parent Trap style when they were babies), and is excited to get to finally meet him. He turns out to be fabulously wealthy, supposedly from raising pigs, but he reveals to Gru that that's just a cover. His recently deceased father had been one of the world's greatest supervillains, but considered Dru a failure. Now Dru wants Gru to teach him to be a supervillain, which Gru doesn't want to do. But eventually they go after Bratt together, to steal back the diamond. Dru thinks this is his first mission as a supervillain, but in fact Gru wants to return the diamond to the AVL and get his and Lucy's jobs back. Oh, and all but two of the Minions had quit working for Gru when he refused to return to villainy. They end up in prison, but eventually make a cunning jail break. Meanwhile, Lucy tries to get the hang of being a mom to Margo, Agnes, and Edith. Also, Agnes tries to find a real unicorn in a nearby forest.

I guess that's all I want to reveal of the plot, but it's all fairly amusing. I also wanted to mention that the end credits totally reminded me of "Spy vs. Spy". (I'm pretty sure that was intentional.) And the DVD has a bonus short film, The Secret Life of Kyle.


CGI index
Despicable Me / Minions franchise
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main series: Despicable Me * Despicable Me 2 * Despicable Me 3
short films
spinoff series: Minions * Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022)