'Can we go and see the new Despicable Me movie?' Now, you may very well be thinking that the no-brainer answer to this question would be 'Well, technically, yes, but why would we want to do that; we are mortal, after all, with only a finite amount of time available to us for the partaking of culture – we need to try and make sure we only expose our sensitive brains to the finest products of human culture, not some cash-cow gag dustbin about little yellow morons. Especially when I couldn't find the time to go and see Longlegs.'

And perfectly sound and reasonable as this answer is, it does fail to take into account some of the wilder elaborations of human nature. There are those of us who have large broods of small, demanding, very young people, upon whom the various products of the Illumination animation studio have an oddly quelling effect, and for whom this sort of film effectively qualifies as respite care. There are those of us who are, not to put too fine a point on it, pathological masochists, and have thus probably seen both the Minions films repeatedly. And, of course, there are those of us who are married.

So, using the recommended implement – the crowbar of pretend-critical integrity – to open up my mind, off we went to see Despicable Me 4 (director Chris Renaud) at the local independent, where it has secured the morning slot for the next week or so (showing three times a day in the afternoons and evenings is Deadpool & Wolverine: I mean, it's a good, fun film, but one wonders about the extent to which its success is because there's not much else showing). My co-spousal unit had laid her hands on some second-hand Ludovico technique gear and was happy to do the honours by securing me in place for the film, and off we went.

It's the usual knockabout stuff, really. Reformed supervillain Gru (Steve Carell, who since the pandemic has just been coasting along doing these voice parts, though I suppose he was in Asteroid City too) is working for the Anti-Villain League, and the film opens with a set piece where he attends the villains' high school reunion to apprehend his old rival Maxime le Mal (Will Ferrell), who has decided to rebrand himself as a cockroach-themed villain (there's possibly a little homage to The Fly going on here).

All goes well, and Maxime is dragged off swearing revenge against Gru and his family (he has a wife, three daughters – who I think are adopted – and a son). This being a perky 95-minute film, however, almost at once Maxime escapes, forcing the family to take extreme measures to ensure their safety.

Yes, this time the basic idea for the film is 'the Gru family go into witness protection and have to try and pass themselves off as normal', which is a fruitful source of gags (or at least it was when The Simpsons did the same idea back in 1993). If we're going to get technical it's on some level a parody of the John D MacDonald novel The Executioners (as any fule kno), not that it's credited as such. One bonus at least is that they can't take all the minions into hiding with them, and so most of them are sent off into their own subplot, which appears to be a parody of genuine superhero movies (as opposed to the spy-fi which these films seem to allude to a lot).

And what ensues is – well, it's a sort of gag-dustbin as usual, about an hour of bits and sketches without much in the way of plot, bookended by set-up and climax. Some minions get superpowers with disastrous consequences (you know, the Jack Kirby estate should receive a flat $10 million from the big movie studios every year, so great is his influence still on modern cinema), Gru's wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig) makes a mess of becoming a hairdresser, the neighbour's daughter figures out who Gru actually is, and so on.

Well, it's cheerful, and almost wholly innocuous, and colourful and lively and never actually boring. Visually it looks great and there is a curious tendency to put songs from the 1980s and 1990s on the soundtrack, which obviously made me nostalgic. It's just not quite as� what's the word? �funny as it really should be, for something which appears to be presenting itself as a comedy film. Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding the situation and Despicable Me 4 isn't actually meant to be a comedy, in which case what is it?

See, that's the really insidious thing about a film like Despicable Me 4, you find yourself overthinking it and analysing concepts of genre and archetype and moral premise, all to no purpose. I mean, what is the moral premise of the film? How do the characters grow and develop in the course of the story? Is it the case that Gru has been neglecting his wife and kids and the enforced break while hiding out allows him the opportunity to reconnect with them? No, it isn't. Or are the whole clan ill at ease with their obvious weirdness and dysfunctionality, with the requirement to pretend to be 'normal' leading them to realise that this is an essentially meaningless word only used to enforce arbitrary or cultural group norms? No, it's not that either. As far as I can make out it doesn't have any kind of moral premise or depth to it at all, it's just hyperkinetic art direction and slapstick humour about the little yellow morons. Again.

But then again, the co-spousal unit thought it was fun and finds the minions to be 'cute', oh God, so I suppose I'd better find some nicer things to say about it or I'll be sleeping in the garden again. Possibly the clue is there in the fact that this whole film is largely ripping off other films and TV shows, particularly The Simpsons' version of Cape Fear. The thing about TV shows is that their characters rarely undergo explicit character development from week to week – if they did the characters would soon become unrecognisable. Seinfeld (not an obvious influence on Despicable Me, admittedly) had the guiding principle 'no learning, no growing', which many similar shows essentially stuck to as well. So if we consider the Despicable Me and Minions films, not as actual cinema but as instances of a rather unusual situation comedy, we can perhaps start to make sense of them and possibly learn something about the state and destiny of modern culture. But someone else can do that as I can only face watching one of them every few years.

Also Showing & Streaming. . .

. . . Jane Schoenbrun's I Saw the TV Glow, which for some reason is being marketed as a sort of art-house horror movie, which it arguably isn't. Mostly set in the 1990s, Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine play a couple of unhappy teenagers who bond over their obsession with a (fictional) TV show, The Pink Opaque (basically a pastiche of Buffy the Vampire Slayer mashed up with Power Rangers from the look of it). But does the programme genuinely offer an escape from their various problems?

I can see where the horror angle has come from, for this is an intense, atmospheric film which is often quite uncomfortable to watch, but it's more about exploring the alienation of the main characters and their isolation from a hostile world, in addition to touching on the intensity of the relationships people can feel with cult TV shows and their fellow devotees. Probably a very good film, but bleak, and you probably need to approach it knowing the kind of film it is.

. . . smart, frivolous fun is meanwhile provided by Richard Linklater's Hit Man, which he co-wrote and co-produced with its star Glen Powell (also currently appearing in Twisters). Loosely based on fact, this is the story of a nerdy college professor who somewhat improbably finds himself pretending to be a contract killer to entrap people with murder on their minds for the New Orleans police. He turns out to be unexpectedly convincing at it. Eventually one of his potential clients (Adria Arjona) falls for him, and he finds himself rather drawn to her, too, but which one of his identities is going to win out in the end?

This is a funny, clever rom-com with some surprisingly deep touches, but it mainly looks like a calling card from Powell announcing he is available to become the new Ryan Gosling (even though he's not that much younger than the old Ryan Gosling). Powell obviously has the charisma and some impressive range, and is willing to send himself up and look ridiculous. This is a great vehicle for him, with Arjona also getting the chance to make an impression. The kind of film you wish played longer in cinemas (it's on Netflix).

Awix

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