The Slapstick Trap Illumination Keeps Falling Into

Minions & Monsters is being hailed as the best Despicable Me film in over a decade because it embraces slapstick-driven storytelling.

The praise arrives as relief. As if the franchise has finally remembered what made it work — except slapstick has always been what makes it work.

The first Despicable Me in 2010 was built on visual gags and physical comedy. So was Despicable Me 2, so was Despicable Me 3.

What changed is not the film but the conversation. Critics and audiences now describe as a 'return to form' and a 'creative peak' what is actually just the original form, unchanged. By calling this a throwback, reviewers transform repetition into intention. It becomes a statement instead of a pattern, evidence of artistic wisdom instead of commercial consistency.

Slapstick isn't a discovery Illumination made—it's the exact formula critics are now calling ambitious because it feels like a step backward.

We're rewarding the franchise for doing exactly what it has always done. Only after convincing ourselves it represents something new. That's not a creative peak — that's a successful marketing conversation.