Despicably predictable fourth outing for Gru and his Minions

Despicable Me 4
★★½
(PG) 94 minutes

The Despicable Me films originally concerned a bumbling bad guy with a secretly soft heart. But that was a long time ago. For several films now the anti-hero Gru, voiced by Steve Carell, has been a solid citizen on the right side of the law, and even his crime-fighting duties come second to his commitment to being a dad.

His family has expanded in Despicable Me 4, directed by series regular Chris Renaud (with Patrick Delage). Besides their three adopted daughters, Gru and his picture-perfect wife, Lucy (Kristen Wiig), now have a biological infant son, which only confirms their respectability, even if Gru Jr has inherited his father’s rebel side.

The gag is that outwardly Gru remains what he always was, a scowling troll surely related at least distantly to the Addams Family’s Uncle Fester (one of his foes calls him a “walking boiled potato”, a description that can’t be bettered, with his long nose like a blade inserted to check he’s cooked all the way through).

Is this how the Despicable Me brains trust see themselves? Gru’s co-creator Pierre Coffin is French, which has probably helped him get away with a certain amount of “funny foreigner” stereotyping. But despite Carell’s generic “Slavic” accent, until now the ethnic comedy of the series has been far less pointed than in, say, Adam Sandler’s Hotel Transylvania films.

Despicable Me 4, however, begins as a story directly about assimilation, with Gru and family placed in a species of witness protection program after he’s targeted by a flamboyant French rival (Will Ferrell, basically reprising his wicked fashion designer Mugatu from Zoolander). Their new home is in upmarket suburbia, which presents its challenges: world domination is one thing, but have you tried fitting in at the country club?

The key to success, Gru is informed, is to be “less Gru-ish”. Fortunately or not, the theme is barely developed. Neither is any other theme, unavoidably given the plethora of subplots.

There’s Lucy’s new job as a hairstylist, but that doesn’t go anywhere, and neither do the karate lessons taken by Gru’s daughters. A more promising set-up involves an aspiring tween villainess (Joey King) who blackmails Gru into becoming her mentor, but even this trails off, with the character softened much too quickly.