Gru's twin doubles the trouble in overstuffed 'Despicable Me 3'
Gru reunites with an identical twin brother he never knew about.
Lucy worries about being a good mom.
Twelve-year-old Margo accidentally gets engaged to a little boy.
Little Agnes searches for a real unicorn.
Then, those adorably amoral Tater Tots, the Minions, become so bored with being good that they turn against their leader Gru and demand he return them to working in the criminal sector.
Sooner or later, it was bound to happen that the Minion movies would run low on smart inventiveness and genuine emotions by substituting quantity for quality.
If that didn't happen already in 2015's "Minions," it certainly has in "Despicable Me 3," upping the series' Tex Avery quotient with more cartoon violence, more chases, more cliches (along with the overused visual crutches of big ceiling fans, balloons, amusement parks and explosions) and a creepy fascination with Minion buttocks.
The uber-villain here is break-dancing, mullet-bearing Balthazar Bratt, a former 1980s child star who can't let go of '80s nostalgia and his once-successful TV alter-ego.
Bratt (voiced by Trey Parker, co-creator of "South Park" and the Tony-Award-laden Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon") plots to take revenge against the Hollywood system that destroyed his career once adolescence kicked in and his popular TV series "Evil Bratt" was canceled.
Frequently uttering his annoying catchphrase "I've been a baaaaaaad boy!", Bratt steals a 60-kajillion-carat diamond, indirectly causing reformed master criminal Gru (again voiced by Steve Carell, with a less villainous Slavic accent) to be fired from the Anti Villain League (AVL) where his wife Lucy (voiced by Kristen Wiig) works as an agent.
Gru barely gets time to adjust to unemployment when a stuffy British gentleman informs him that he has a twin bro with flowing blond hair, Dru (also Carell) who, as we discover, wants Gru to teach him the art of villainy.
"Face it, Gru, villainy is in your blood!" Dru says. It's true, Gru! Dru reveals their father was a master villain himself, and says Gru must continue the family legacy.
"Despicable Me 3" lays the groundwork for a provocative discussion of the duality of human existence, the tug-of-war between the forces of attractive evil and disciplined good, but we can't be sure what point the screenplay (by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio) wants to make.
Outside of a bizarre sequence where the Minions poke fun at prison culture while serving time, the movie relegates the popular merchandising products to a yellow Greek chorus, supplying the appropriate "Awwwww!" to reinforce the forced emotions when characters say, "I love you."
"Despicable Me 3" gets downright mean at times, especially when Gru's Mom (voiced by Julie Andrews) reveals how she and Dad split up and each took a son.
"Clearly, I got second choice," she tells him.
One can only wonder how different "Despicable Me 3" would have been had Trey Parker written and directed, and left the '80s-cassette-tape-music-loving Balthazar Bratt to be played by Chris Pratt.
“Despicable Me 3”
★ ★
Starring: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Trey Parker, Dana Gaier, Miranda Cosgrove, Nev Scharrel
Directed by: Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda
Other: A Universal Pictures release. Rated PG. 90 minutes