Despicable Me 4 forgets Minions are delicious spice, not a main course

There’s one particular Minion gag in Despicable Me 4 that I can’t stop thinking about. It’s so simple, but every time I remember it, I chuckle. Basically, one of Gru’s Minions gets stuck in a vending machine, and he can’t figure out how to get out. For the entire movie. So he’s just perpetually in the background of whatever else is going on, sleeping on piles of chips or reading a book called The Vending Machine Diet. Other shenanigans play out on screen, but he’s stuck behind the glass.

It’s hilarious, but it made me realize that even though Minion-filled scenes often devolve into annoying gibberish, there is a correct way to use them, an ideal quantity of Minion gags to pepper between other scenes — a Golden Ratio. The Minions were only a small part of the original 2010 Despicable Me, but they’ve since eclipsed former villain Gru and his family in the greater cultural landscape. But putting them front and center means missing what Minions are best at.

The Despicable Me movies work best on both a story and a comedy level when filmmakers use the Minions sparingly, and don’t overwhelm scenes with them. Even though the vending-machine gag is one of the best bits of business in Despicable Me 4, it’s not the only Minion gag in the film. Far from it.

The chaotic yellow fellows are polarizing. Some people love ’em so much that they buy limited-edition Minion crocs, build elaborate meme pages around them, or spend a lot of time wondering how Minions taste. Other people have a visceral hatred of them, a rage that makes them dismiss every single Despicable Me franchise project. I used to put myself in the latter camp, but I’ve formed a begrudging fondness for the bespectacled beans, thanks to a longstanding inside joke with a friend. Still, they’re never my favorite part of the Despicable Me movies, which are more engaging and creative when they embrace the kooky worldbuilding around theatrical villainy as a day job.

That running background gag really emphasized how hilarious the Minions can be when they aren’t the focus of a scene. And I laughed out loud when Gru used his tiny henchmen as a baby-care pit crew, rushing in to change Gru Jr.’s diaper as if they’re changing the tires on a race car. Those jokes work because they’re in the background of bigger scenes, and they play up the other humorous antics going on by adding yet another goofy layer to an already off-kilter world.

Scenes that are Minions and only Minions? There isn’t enough contrast between the buffoonish blobs and other slightly more grounded (but certainly still quirky) characters. All-Minion scenes are a bad feedback loop, reminiscent of when you put two voice-heightening mimic apps together and they turn a simple statement into a grating cacophony. Minions just aren’t nuanced or variable enough to carry a scene when they’re the only things in it.

Image: Illumination

Case in point: In Despicable Me 4, all the Minions who aren’t trapped in vending machines or serving as Gru’s pit-stop crew take a bus to the headquarters of the Anti-Villain League, the spy agency where Gru (Steve Carell) and his wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig) work. They’re terrible bus riders, blowing bubbles, throwing a party, and annoying the bus driver, who stands up and tries to put them in their place. But the sheer mob of Minions quickly overwhelm him, surging forward in a literal wave as they charge to the building. It’s a long scene where the Minions all merge into one senseless, nonsense-spewing entity. The filmmaking team try so hard to make that idea weird and lively, but with any sense of character or specificity erased, it just ends up being a snooze. There’s nothing unexpected or interesting about the Minions when they literally blend into one big, yellow blur.

Scenes like that give the Minions their worst reputation. It doesn’t help that there are two Minion-centered spinoff movies that are mostly built on Minion-Minion interactions. After the 30th interaction built around their high-pitched voices, cheerful cruelty to each other, and exaggerated carelessness, it’s hard to remember that they actually can be engaging and surprising when they’re allowed to have personalities, or when they’re used to highlight the main characters, instead of being an endlessly repetitive side story. Like any sort of particularly strong artificial flavoring, Minions can add some much-needed zest to an otherwise-bland movie scene. But rely too heavily on Minions, and even a decent movie will be overpowered by their saccharine flavor. Considering how often Minions oversaturate the Despicable Me movies, it’s very easy to forget what a good low dose of Minion antics can do for the soul.

Despicable Me 4 is out in theaters now.