This Wednesday comes out Despicable Me 3 by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda. This is the third installment in a saga initiated in 2010 by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud. Critical and commercial success, Despicable Me created a stir in the summer of 2010, especially thanks to its little mascots: the Minions. So much so that a spin-off was staged in 2015 by the duo behind the camera of this third opus. Let's take a look back at these three previous films.
2010: Despicable Me
Between the big animation studios Pixar, Dreamworks and Disney , it is difficult to make a place, even if the Japanese have largely succeeded with Miyasaki's Studio Ghibli. Illumination Entertainment has managed to make a name for itself thanks to Despicable Me. A success that is explained by its charismatic protagonist: Gru (voiced in the original version by Steve Carell and by Gad Elmaleh in the French version; Two comedians who know how to give voice). With a little eastern accent, Gad Elmaleh, managed to give his own comic identity to this anti-hero. Gru becomes a ball of humor that will evolve over the films. First defined as an inveterate villain, imaginative in his misdeeds, he is ready to do what the average man would not dare.
The result is some very funny situations. The appearance of the three little girls will later create an interesting emotional spring. Gru will obviously humanize himself thanks to these children. He will evolve, keep his grumpy side, while becoming a pure and protective soul. The three little girls are obviously the emotional driving force of the film. Funny and touching, they help advance the story and create the evolution of the central protagonist. But the great strength of Despicable Me obviously lies in the Minions. Small mascots inseparable from the saga completely cult today, these little yellow critters are the main comic spring of the saga.
Despicable Me 2
Three years later, here's the sequel. A second opus that explodes the Box Office that starts twice as well as its predecessor. As for the press reviews, they remain positive. Gru has become kind and still lives with her three little refugees. The Minions are still doing their own thing. But Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud decide to insert a new character in the person of Lucy. You see the rest coming… Opposition between Gru and Lucy, then attraction, romance, love, disillusionment, reconciliation, complicity, victory. This second opus offers a classic storytelling scheme with an extra dose of action and fills its lack of inventiveness in writing with a perfectly balanced humor. Whether through situations or dialogues, the duo of directors manages to create some very funny valves. This sequel is entertaining but turns out to be very (too much?) classic. The humorous potential of the cuties is always present and is superbly well exploited. The character of Gru meanwhile, manages to be funnier than in the previous opus. Similarly, the three girls are more withdrawn which allows a writing of Gru more advanced and more moving. More humor but a lazy scenario.
The Minions
In 2015 exit Chris Renaud, Kyle Balda takes his place and works with Pierre Coffin on The Minions, the spin-off of the saga Despicable and Despicable centered on the world-famous mascots. The film works even better than its predecessors. It achieved more than 6 million admissions in ten weeks. The more this saga progresses, the more it dominates the box office. The idea is very good: to offer an entire story to these small individuals, allowing further explanations or even more decadent humor. These characters sometimes recall the madness of the penguins of Madagascar. These characters are a representation of the mass. As with the Smurfs, the individual does not exist, the mass dominates against all odds. Individual ambitions are not supposed to exist and these beings coexist in colonies or do not exist. This representation is an obvious criticism of our society where the mass predominates over the individual. Of course, the starting premise will be the contradiction of this rule established when three Minions go on an adventure on their own. Classic scheme, perhaps too much for the comic potential of these characters. Against all odds, The Minions turns out to be less funny than the two I's, ugly and wicked.After all, maybe the Minions were so funny because of their properly dosed appearances. Used sparingly, all appearances of these characters were excessively funny. There, the two filmmakers sign 1h40 of Minions. Some situations are extremely funny, but the film lacks rhythm, and the finale is distressingly banal.
Despicable Me 3 comes out this Wednesday under the direction of Kyle Balda and Pierre Coffin, with of course the return of the Minions. While waiting to find all these beautiful people in the dark rooms, enjoy the trailer now.
