Review: 'Despicable Me 4' is a painfully humorless exercise in franchise extension, and proof that some hits can only produce sequels for so long

“Despicable Me 4” is the 14-year-old franchise’s sixth movie (four with that name, two with “Minions” in the title), and it’s also the least of them — a perfunctory collection of not-very-funny gags barely strung together into a coherent plot. 

As the new movie starts, we find our reformed supervillain, Gru (voiced, as always, by Steve Carell), returning to his class reunion at Lycée Pas Bon, the school for villainy. There he encounters his old school rival, Maxime de Mal — voiced by Will Ferrell in a vaguely French accent that’s almost as bad as whatever country’s accent Carell’s Gru uses. Gru is there to capture Maxime for his current bosses, the Anti-Villainy League. 

When that mission is done, Gru returns to his happy home — where his wife, Lucy (voiced by Kristen Wiig), and their three adopted daughters, Margo (voiced by Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (voiced by Dana Gaier) and Agnes (voiced by Madison Skye Polan), live. There’s also a new resident: Junior, Gru and Lucy’s new baby, who is happy except when Gru is holding or looking at him.

Domestic bliss is short-lived, though, when the AVL’s chief, Silas Ramsbottom (voiced by Steve Coogan), reports that Maxime has escaped from his maximum-security prison cell — and, with his girlfriend Valentina (voiced by Sofía Vergara), is seeking revenge on Gru. Silas orders Gru to pack up the family, and three of Gru’s little yellow Minions, to a safe house in the idyllic town of Mayflower.

Mayflower’s main industry, it seems, is producing subplots. The script — by Mike White (“The White Lotus”) and Ken Dario (who’s been with the franchise since the start) — riffs through a long series of sitcom-ready situations, from Margo adjusting to a new school to Gru being blackmailed when his teen neighbor Poppy (voiced by Joey King) figures out his true identity. Meanwhile, back at AVL headquarters, five Minions are injected with super-serum and become superheroes, as well as lame parodies of Marvel characters.

Director Chris Renaud, who’s also been making this franchise’s films since the first one, and co-director Patrick Delage keep the animation moving briskly — there’s an inventive tracking shot of the hundreds of Minions in cubicles in AVL’s offices — to hide how dated the jokes and references are. (A “honey badger don’t care” joke? Seriously?)

There’s one moment, at the very end, that I actually found funny — and it’s Carell and Ferrell doing a duet of the go-to supervillain theme, Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” It made me feel that there could be a funny movie to be made out of “Despicable Me 4,” by playing the video of Carell and Ferrell ad-libbing in the recording booth.

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‘Despicable Me 4’

★

Opens Wednesday, July 3, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for action and rude humor. Running time: 94 minutes.