Despicable Me 4’s Super Bowl Spot Finds Minions Perfecting AI

It’s been quite a while since we’ve gotten a new Despicable Me movie. The story of Gru and his adopted family was last updated with 2017’s Despicable Me 3, and while the Minions have been plenty busy with their own film series in the years since, it’s about time we got a new look at Gru’s (Steve Carell) present-day adventures. 

Thankfully, we don’t have long to wait until we get one. Despicable Me 4, the latest film in the franchise from Illumination and Universal Pictures, is arriving this Fourth of July weekend, and thanks to the Super Bowl’s annual onslaught of trailers, we just got another new look at what’s to come.

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The film’s “Big Game Spot,” like a lot of the spots this year, is essentially a trailer for a trailer, something short and sweet that points you to the full trailer already online, but unlike a lot of those other spots for upcoming movies, Despicable Me 4 used the occasion to poke fun at a certain kind of ad. The spot begins by playing like an ad for an artificial intelligence image generator, something that definitely came up in other ads throughout the night. Only something is… off. The faces in the images look strange, the figures don’t quite fit, and of course some images just flat-out defy reality. The reveal? The “artificial intelligence” behind these images isn’t artificial at all. 

Watch Minions Dabbling in AI in Despicable Me 4’s Super Bowl Spot

That’s right, the Minions are once again making all kinds of mischief in the world, and this time they’re taking responsibility for all those unsettling images you’ve seen floating around on social media. Next thing you know we’ll find out they’re also the ones piloting those new food delivery drones rolling around on sidewalks. 

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But of course, the movie’s not all about the Minions this time around. Despicable Me 4 follows Gru as he and his family must face off against a new villain, Maxime (Will Ferrell) and his girlfriend Valentina (Sofia Vergara), a pair so devious and powerful that Gru will end up on the run in order to protect his family from everything that’s coming. And as if that weren’t enough to deal with, he also has a brand-new baby son who’s the spitting image of Gru himself, so much so that he’s ready to annoy his father at every turn.

Check out the full trailer for Despicable Me 4 below: