The Despicable Me franchise just became the most successful animation series ever, box office-wise, which is only believable given inflation and the fact that I assume the franchise includes the Minions-focused films. In any case, resistance is futile, and the fourth installment has several moments of inspired lunacy that should appeal across the age spectrum, even if it’s very young children who are essentially keeping the series at the top of the heap. By now I would think the idea of a dedicated villain being turned around to become a villain-fighting hero would have outstayed its welcome, but there’s no accounting for thematic success when it comes to the financial calculations of Hollywood. In this one, the dagger-nosed Gru (Steve Carell) is beset by a former classmate at the school for villains, Lycée Pas Bon, he attended as a child, a literally cartoon Frenchman named Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell) who has invented something that turns him into a big bug commanding the cockroach hoards to do his bidding. After Le Mal is thrown in jail and escapes with the aid of his six-legged army, vowing revenge against his fellow alumnus, the deep state villain-fighting agency that employs Gru puts him into witness protection in an upscale suburban neighborhood with his wife, Lucy (Kristen Wiig), his three adopted daughters, and his new infant son, Gru Jr., who doesn’t seem to like him. However, the adolescent girl next door, Poppy (Joey King), recognizes the ex-baddie and blackmails him into helping her pull off a heist that Gru reluctantly, but ably, carries out.

That is essentially the plot, but the script by Ken Daurio and Mike White serves the humor, which has privilege over anything smacking of continuity or structure, so, of course, there’s a substantial Minion subplot that has several of the yellow pill-heads transforming into “mega-superheroes” who can’t quite get their super powers to work for them they way they should. Since most of the Minions’ staying comedic power is of the extreme slapstick variety, they don’t need verbal jokes and thus director Chris Renaud has a free hand to crank up the pratfalls and humiliations that kids love to see. 

When this stuff works, at least for me, it’s because of what’s made fun of. Gru’s bumbling attempt to be an all-American suburban dad (who sells solar panels for a living), especially with that Boris Badunov accent, is a pretty good antidote to current MAGA culture, especially when Gru and Lucy are contrasted with Poppy’s snooty country club-attending parents, who are a hoot-and-a-half but that’s only because I don’t have to live next door to them. Most of the rest of the attempts at levity had me checking my watch.

Speaking of watches, the big budget Fly Me to the Moon clocks in at 132 minutes, which is way too long for a romantic comedy, though selling it as a romantic comedy may be false advertising. All the elements are there—the monumental meet-cute, the initial enmity between the two romantic leads, the subset of supporting players who provide most of the comedy—but the framing story is flimsily constructed, and since that story is based on a real historical event, the Apollo 11 moon landing, the wobbly plot is even less engaging despite its breezy ridiculousness.

The leads seem to have been born to play these roles. Scarlett Johansson is Kelly Jones, the go-getting freelance advertising agent whose forceful personality in a world of Mad Men attracts the attention of the shadowy intelligence operative Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson), who knows that Kelly is a professional con artist and blackmails her into doing PR strategy for NASA so that the project won’t have its funding pulled and the U.S. can get to the moon by the end of 1969, just as JFK promised. Though Berkus’s stated reason is beating the Soviets, the story positions him as an independent operator with a God complex. Kelly’s chief obstacle in getting the astronauts and various NASA honchos on board with product endorsements and CMs is Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), the mission director whose impressive upper body and collection of vintage crew-neck shirts make him the perfect foil for Kelly’s curve-enhancing outfits and very red lipstick. 

Conflict blooms when Berkus insists on there being a backup plan, because the U.S. cannot afford to blow the mission. He gets Kelly to rig a fake moon landing on a soundstage that will be used in case the real one fails, and while, at first, with its fey, Kubrick-jealous director and team of loutish actors, the secret project brims with comic potential, in the end it can’t help but come across as ludicrous in a completely unintended way—how could anybody, even within the fantasy milieu concocted for the movie, think that they would ever be able to pull this scheme off while the actual mission was taking place? And in a way, I think the filmmakers figured this out, too, but way too late. Like Berkus’s stupid notion, they just had to go through with it once they started, and the whole process drains the ending of both romance and comedy. 

Despicable Me 4, in subtitled and dubbed versions, now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku (0570-060-109), Shinjuku Wald 9 (03-5369-4955), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Kino Cinema Shinjuku (03-5315-0978), Toho Cinemas Shibuya (050-6868-5002), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Fly Me to the Moon now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku (0570-060-109), Shinjuku Wald 9 (03-5369-4955), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Shibuya Cine Quinto (03-3477-5905), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Despicable Me 4 home page in Japanese

Fly Me to the Moon home page in Japanese

Despicable Me 4 photo (c) Illumination Entertainment and Universal Studios