--- title: Minions, Delightfully Relegated to Their Proper Place description: The Minions rose to fame, like tiny demented soda bubbles, in Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud's glorious 2010 animated caper Despicable Me. Sadly, these little... canonical: https://time.com/4838675/minions-despicable-me-3-review/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-06-29T11:06:53.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T16:22:26.421Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Minions, Delightfully Relegated to Their Proper Place og:description: The Minions rose to fame, like tiny demented soda bubbles, in Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud's glorious 2010 animated caper Despicable Me. Sadly, these little... og:url: https://time.com/4838675/minions-despicable-me-3-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt38b7e7f5bb2d34f6/6988d3ce196cf4ae98040d1a/despicable-me-3.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: despicable-me-3 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Minions, Delightfully Relegated to Their Proper Place twitter:description: The Minions rose to fame, like tiny demented soda bubbles, in Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud's glorious 2010 animated caper Despicable Me. Sadly, these little... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt38b7e7f5bb2d34f6/6988d3ce196cf4ae98040d1a/despicable-me-3.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Minions, Delightfully Relegated to Their Proper Place  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Jun 29, 2017 11:06 AM UTC  Twins Dru and Gru make for a dastardly duo in Despicable Me 3 Twins Dru and Gru make for a dastardly duo in Despicable Me 3Universal  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Jun 29, 2017 11:06 AM UTC The Minions rose to fame, like tiny demented soda bubbles, in Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud’s glorious 2010 animated caper _Despicable Me_. Sadly, these little yellow capsules of devious (and sometimes deviant) behavior couldn’t carry a whole movie on their own. Wise critics almost unanimously decreed their self-titled 2015 spin-off outing a disappointment, though a sequel is still in the works. Thankfully, in _Despicable Me 3_–the third proper _Despicable Me_ picture, this one directed by Coffin and Kyle Balda and co-directed by Eric Guillon–they’ve returned to their rightful place on the sidelines. Minions are at their best when they’re like the brazen miniature mischief makers some-times found in the margins of medieval illuminated manuscripts. The stuff happening around them is reasonably entertaining too. Steve Carell returns as the voice of reformed baddie Gru, a potbellied softy in a black zip-up jacket. This time around, he learns he has a long-lost twin, Dru (also voiced by Carell). Dru has come by his money honestly–by raising pigs in the land of Freedonia, the filmmakers’ clear nod to Marx Brothers madness. But he has always longed to be a criminal. Gru grudgingly trains him, even as he strives to outwit an embittered ’80s TV star, Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker), who has never gotten over his show’s cancellation. His crimes of villainy include blasting whole cities with hot pink bubblegum and wielding a keytar like a lightsaber. That’s all well and good. But oh, those Minions! In their finest _Despicable Me 3_ moment, they bring the house down with a gibberish version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General.” In their second finest moment, they all go to prison, where they engage in rigorous towel snapping. In their third finest moment, two of them perform a jiggly faux-Hawaiian number, their nonexistent nipples covered by coconut bras. The Minions have proved they can’t headline a movie, yet they pretty much carry this one. How do they do it? The answer, like the Minion language itself, is a mystery perhaps better left unplumbed. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4838675/minions-despicable-me-3-review/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4838675/minions-despicable-me-3-review/"},"headline":"Minions, Delightfully Relegated to Their Proper Place","datePublished":"2017-06-29T11:06:53.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T16:22:26.421Z","description":"The Minions rose to fame, like tiny demented soda bubbles, in Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud's glorious 2010 animated caper Despicable Me. 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