Despicable Me 3 is so — sorry fans — average. Worse, it’s a couple of cuts below the first two films and the Minions movie. Great characters — especially the minions and Gru’s three adopted orphan girls — dotted the animated James Bondian plots. They weren’t all that interesting, but the minions kept the plots lively and laugh-packed.

Gru learns he has a twin brother. Dru tells Gru he comes from a long line of criminals and wants Gru to teach him how to be a master criminal. Dru is tired of ordinary life and he and the minions miss their life of crime. So when he and Judy get fired after failing to collar super criminal Balthazar Bratt, he considers the offer.

It’s the minions that really caused us to fall in love with the concept and its characters. They were the fulcrum that balanced out the so-so plots and gave the first two films their charm. Despicable Me 3 has too much Gru, Dru and not enough minions.

Your children and grandchildren will likely like Despicable Me 3. My granddaughter loved it, but she’s only 4, and 4-year-olds aren’t a critical lot.

Adults are a different story.

Much of the blame has to land at the feet of writers Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio and of producers trying to milk a few million more dollars out of the series. While this can’t be defined as despicable, it is proof that the third time is not always the charm.