Despicable Me 4
IMDb Rating
45K+
IMDb Votes
54%
Rotten Tomatoes
$969M
Box Office
Synopsis & Review
Gru and Lucy welcome a new addition to the family, baby Gru Jr. — who, for reasons the film never bothers to explain, openly despises his father from the moment he arrives. Domestic chaos is interrupted when a flamboyant new supervillain named Maxime Le Mal escapes prison alongside his femme fatale girlfriend Valentina, seeking revenge on Gru for an old grudge. To keep the family safe, the Anti-Villain League relocates Gru, Lucy, and the kids to the fictional suburb of Mayflower under new identities, where Gru meets a precocious new neighbor named Poppy who blackmails him into pulling off one last heist by her side.
By the fourth mainline entry — sixth overall, counting the Minions spinoffs — Despicable Me has settled into a groove that prioritizes broad, kid-friendly slapstick and Minion-driven sight gags over narrative ambition, and Despicable Me 4 does not deviate from that formula. Chris Renaud, directing his fifth film in the franchise, leans hard on set-piece spectacle — a witness-protection suburb populated by eccentric new neighbors, a flamboyant supervillain rival, and an extended Minions detour involving a serum that grants them temporary superpowers — without ever quite finding a fresh angle on Gru's family dynamic, thoroughly mined across three prior films and several spinoffs already. Will Ferrell's Maxime Le Mal makes for an enjoyably hammy antagonist, and baby Gru Jr.'s open hostility toward his father provides a handful of genuinely funny beats, but the film's reliance on Minion mayhem as connective tissue between plot points has become a crutch as much as a signature. Critics were largely unmoved, even as families kept showing up in numbers that pushed Illumination's larger franchise past five billion dollars in lifetime grosses — proof that brand loyalty, more than quality, now drives this particular box-office engine.
Why Watch This Movie?
The Minions Are at Peak Chaos
A mid-film detour gives the Minions temporary superpowers, unleashing some of the franchise's most purely silly slapstick sequences yet — exactly the kind of moment that keeps very young viewers glued to the screen.
Will Ferrell Brings Genuine Comic Menace
As flamboyant supervillain Maxime Le Mal, Ferrell leans fully into theatrical villainy, giving the film an antagonist with more personality than the franchise has offered in several entries.
A New Baby Shakes Up the Gru Family Formula
Gru Jr.'s open disdain for his father is a small but effective wrinkle on the franchise's well-worn family dynamic, giving Steve Carell some fresh material to play against.
Five Films of Pure, Reliable Comfort-Watch Energy
Whatever its narrative shortcomings, Despicable Me 4 delivers exactly what it promises — bright, fast, joke-dense entertainment built for repeat family viewing, which is precisely why audiences keep returning.
Cast & Crew
Director
Chris Renaud
Co-Director
Patrick Delage
Studio
Illumination / Universal
Gru
Steve Carell
Lucy
Kristen Wiig
Maxime Le Mal
Will Ferrell
Valentina
Sofía Vergara
Original Score
Heitor Pereira
Official Trailer
© Illumination / Universal Pictures. Trailer embedded via YouTube.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to watch the previous Despicable Me or Minions movies first?
Not strictly. The film recaps Gru's basic situation early on, and the central witness-protection plot is self-contained. That said, longtime viewers will recognize returning characters and running jokes that land harder with the full franchise context.
Why does baby Gru Jr. dislike his father?
The film plays this as an unexplained running gag rather than a plot point with a specific cause — Gru Jr. is simply hostile toward Gru from birth, which becomes a recurring source of physical comedy throughout the film before shifting as the story progresses.
How does Despicable Me 4 connect to the Minions spinoff films?
It's set within the same shared timeline as the Minions prequels but takes place well after those events, once Gru is established as a family man working with the Anti-Villain League. No direct viewing of the Minions films is required to follow the plot.
Is there a Despicable Me 5 or further Minions films planned?
Universal and Illumination have not announced a specific Despicable Me 5, but given the franchise's consistent billion-dollar-plus performance across nearly every entry, additional sequels or spinoffs are considered highly likely industry-wide.
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