directed by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda
written by Brian Lynch
When the animated film Despicable Me came out in 2010, it captivated critics and audiences alike with its inventive story of a supervillain adopting three little girls. What the makers of the film may not have anticipated, however, was how popular said supervillain's droves of tiny, overall-wearing, gibberish-speaking henchmen, collectively called the "Minions" would eventually turn out to be the most influential pop-culture figures with yellow skin since Spongebob Squarepants. After increasing the exposure of the Minions in the second film, the next logical step, in view of their popularity, was to give them their own movie, and so we have the animated film "Minions."
Minions is the story of a race of little yellow creatures that have been around since the dawn of time, whose overriding purpose in life is, as illogical as it may sound, to find and work for the biggest villain in the world. In the course of their lives, they work for such renowned bad guys as the Tyrannosaurus Rex, Dracula, and Napoleon Bonaparte, and always end up causing their bosses' undoing, as a result of which they end up living in an ice cave for over a hundred years, until one of them, Kevin (Coffin, who voices all other minions), decides to go out an find "the" big villain to whom all of them can devote their apparently eternal lives in servitude. Leaving the cave, Kevin, accompanied by fellow Minions Bob and Stuart sets out to find this "big boss" and their travels take them to New York City in the year 1968, where they learn while watching late-night television, that the supervillain they are searching for may just be in Orlando, a femme fatale by the name of Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock). They travel to Orlando and through a madcap sequence of events manage to impress her enough to get her to hire them, whereupon she gives them their big assignment: they are to steal the Royal Crown of England. While they will have at their disposal the gadgets of Scarlet's husband Herb (Jon Hamm), it wont be an easy task, but the Minions are always eager to please.
The paper-thin plot is barely enough to sustain the running time of a full-length movie, but the good news is that the slapstick involving the Minions is virtually non-stop, so all told it's still about eighty or so minutes of nice, mindless fun with topnotch computer-generated animation, all set to a totally groovy sixties soundtrack (though I also appreciated the familiar musical cue from the Despicable Me movies, which was also a staple of the mobile device game). Speaking of the game, it gets quite the shout-out from the filmmakers at the movie's climax.
That's the thing about this movie, though; one remembers things like the toys and the video games because unlike the quirky first movie, which was really about a middle-aged man becoming an instant dad for the very first time, this one, with its nonsensical plot and celebrity walk-ons really feels like a slickly-packaged product, designed primarily to sell related merchandise. It makes no pretensions about what it is and is not, but watching it felt like going on a junk food binge. It was a tasty treat in its own way, but not quite what I'd call a truly satisfying cinematic experience.
The kids loved it, and I was happy to indulge them, but I wouldn't let them watch movies like this on a regular basis for the same reason I wouldn't let them eat hotdogs everyday; it isn't really good for them.
6/10
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