One Despicable Me Movie Stands Above The Rest On Rotten Tomatoes

Because of its current dominance in the world of kiddie entertainment, it may take a moment's reflection to recall that Chris Renaud's and Pierre Coffin's 2010 animated film "Despicable Me" once felt the slightest bit subversive. The main character of "Despicable Me" was the Eastern European supervillain Gru (Steve Carell) who aimed to commit visible acts of spiteful villainy. His latest plan was to steal the moon out of the sky, merely for the infamy it would garner him. 

"Despicable Me" takes place in a world that's overrun by villains, thieves, and superpowered monster people, but is seemingly absent of heroes. It won't be until later sequels that a crime-fighting MI-6-type organization would come into play. Later still, Gru would renounce his villainy and become a dippy suburban dad to a trio of precocious girls. In "Despicable Me 4," Gru also has a wife and an infant son. 

The central feature of the "Despicable Me" films, of course, are Gru's Minions, an army of yellow-skinned Twinkie-like gnomes who chitter in their own personal language and are easily distracted by snacks and butt jokes. The Minions have become one of the most recognizable cartoon characters of 21st century and are either amusing or horrifying, depending on whether or not you have kids. They became so popular, in fact, that they have now been featured in two movies of their own. 

As of June, 2024, there have been six "Despicable Me"/"Minions" features, and they have all been box office hits. Collectively, they have earned $5.4 billion. Weirdly, though, none of them have been hugely well-reviewed. Mostly, they're considered amusing slapstick distractions, rather than meaningful pieces of art. According to Rotten Tomatoes, though, at least one "Despicable Me" movie has received more positive notices than any other. The first still reigns supreme.

Well, by "supreme," I mean a mere 80% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 203 reviews). It seems that many critics responded to the film's novelty, skewing toward "naughty" behavior and villainy, rather than the usual, bland heroics one might see in a film by Disney or Pixar. "Despicable Me," at least on a certain level, embraced a child's anarchic drives toward chaos, centering a misanthropic character who aimed to misbehave. That concept, paired with the film's unusual character designs, drew in many curious audiences. 

And then, of course, there were the Minions, who seemed to be acting out miniature movies of their own even as they shared the screen with Gru. Those naughty little sidekicks were brilliant comic creations, matching other recent characters like Scrat from the "Ice Age" movies and the Rabbids from a series of popular Ubisoft video games. Kids and adults alike loved those little suppository-shaped freaks, and they have henceforth been marketed to within an inch of their lives. 

The third film in the series, "Minions" (2015), posited that the Minions were not created by Gru in a lab, but are eternal, un-evolving entities that exist to aid evil beings in their destructive quests. Hidden deep within a massive, sugar-sweet cloud of friendliness, there is a tiny nugget of punk defiance in the Minions. It is their biological imperative to assure death be perpetuated. They have the potential to be complete agents of chaos. Sadly, they don't embrace it nearly enough, instead following rules and snarfing bananas. 

"Minions," incidentally, only has a 56% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This was after "Despicable Me 2" (2013) accrued a 75% approval rating. 

The fourth film in the series, "Despicable Me 3" (2017) only received a 58% approval rating as critics had certainly become tired of the series' antics by then. Nonetheless, it was the highest-grossing film in the series to date, making over $1.03 billion just by itself. It was followed by "Minions: The Rise of Gru" in 2022, which was a follow-up to "Minions," but this time featured Gru as a young boy. Oh yeah, the first "Minions" was set in the late 1960s and featured a lot of 1960s music cues and Austin Powers-style slapstick. "The Rise of Gru" took place in the early 1970s, and followed suit with a soundtrack full of '70s bangers. "The Rise of Gru" surprised everyone by accruing a 70% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 

In 2024, audiences have embraced "Despicable Me 4" to the tune of $811 million. Like the others, its overwhelming commercial success wasn't reflected by critics, who granted the film an approval rating of only 56%. 

And that's just the six feature films. Thanks to DVD special features, there are also 20 "Despicable Me" short films in the world, most of them centered on the Minions. They are like modern deities, demigods that represent our capacity for clumsiness, childishness, and affinity for bottoms. 

Hilariously, in the epicly expensive 2018 sci-fi film "Mortal Engines," set in the 31st century, the denizens had unearthed a pair of Minions statues, unsure as to what they were. They came to the conclusion that the Minions were magical beings worshiped by the people of the early 21st century. Given the amount of merch and money devoted to them, that's not entirely inaccurate.