"Respect. power. Banana!!!"
Functioning essentially as a prequel to the Despicable Me movies, Minions shows the history of these yellow sidekicks, serving one despicable villain after another. But after causing many villain downfalls, the minions retreat into hiding somewhere in the Antarctic. One day in 1968 (42 years before Gru supposedly), three minions, Kevin, Bob, and Stuart, decide to venture off to find their next boss. After stumbling upon information for VillainCon, they stumble upon the super-villainess Scarlet Overkill (voiced by Sandra Bullock), who after some tests, hire the three as her henchmen. Will she be the perfect boss for the minions, or will it lead to disaster?
The animation is very good, especially considering the small price tag ($75 million versus the average $150 million now spent to make DreamWorks/Pixar/Disney Animation movies). There are some colorful depictions of historical events, and some nice blends of realism and cartoonish flair in London as well as some other worldly locations. Some explosions and other moments make good use of 3D (even though I didn't see it in the extra dimension).
More star-studded than the Despicable Me movies' cast, this movie's cast....hams it up almost to the point where they overdo it. Most interesting here is Bullock, who has only done one other voiceover in her career (Miriam in The Prince of Egypt). But while she doesn't have the comedic talent of Steve Carell, her super-dramatic, theatrical, and cartoonish and tough-as-nails attitude works very well for Scarlett. Also surprisingly interesting is Jon Hamm (Million Dollar Arm), who is almost unrecognizable as Scarlett's husband Herb. In their supporting roles, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Jennifer Saunders, and Steve Coogan provide interesting moments, while Geoffrey Rush has an interesting narration.
The movie is very funny at times, with some solid slapstick and visual gags. Heitor Pereira's music score is fine, though its outdone by the usage of 60's songs, which are nice additions. One other great thing about Minions is its ending. The ending action sequence is both entertaining and exciting, while the very end (I don't want to spoil it), connects Minions to Despicable Me in a spectacular way. The dialog, gags, and everything in that ending scene is almost a perfect "connect-the-dots" moment.
On the downside, the film's story has problems. It lacks the heart and clever moments that made the Despicable Me movies very likable. There are no morals in the story (save for a self-sacrifice moment towards the end). It never contains anything real serious. It doesn't take any time to slow down and reflect. Also, some of the film's humor strays into adult jokes that the previous Despicable Me movies didn't exactly go into. Because of that, the overall pacing goes too fast.
Within five years, Illumination Entertainment has grown from a small movie called Despicable Me, to quickly becoming one of the leading animation studios, ranking just behind Pixar in terms of the last few years' average grosses. But what has made them so successful? The almost unavoidable marketing? The colorful characters? It may seem like a mystery.
But the Despicable Me movies were a lot of fun, in addition to being well-animated, exciting, and had some solid heart added to the mix. They weren't perfect, they had their fair share of annoying moments and weren't exactly animated classics, but they do stand out among some of the past few year's efforts, right alongside How To Train Your Dragon and Frozen.
The little yellow characters also quickly became incredibly popular, and even a few years later, they were the talk of my friends. From "minionese" phone conversations to Facebook posts, they just haven't worn out their welcome. So, getting their own movie seemed like a logical next step. We know they work well as supporting characters, but can they carry a 90-minute movie?
The answer is mostly yes. While the overall result leans more towards an uneven, long series of Looney Tunes-like gags rather than a consistent cross-country adventure, this doesn't lose the overall fun feeling from its predecessors (or should I say, successors?). The jokes mostly work, and the animation is Illumination's most creative yet.
Minions, in that case (despite a handful of stumbles), is almost as creatively-engaging as what came before it. It may lack heart and some plot, but its quirky tone and many fun moments will be more than enough to make audiences go, (dare I say it?) bananas!
Score: 7.3/10
Content Problems Families Should Be Aware Of:
Language: "Gosh" and "you screwed it up!"
Adult Content: A few instances of innuendo. For instance, Stuart, Bob and Kevin disguise themselves as a woman, and one of the three's eyes ends up in the place of a woman's chest. That minion breaks open the shirt for a look, and shocks a random person. Scarlett flies upside down, and pulls up her dress to make sure it doesn't fall off. Stuart is shown once to wear a thong and embraces two fire hydrants in a hot tub. He also somewhat slyly mimics Scarlett and Herb's kissing/caressing. Guards are hypnotized to strip down to their underwear and dance (which includes slapping each other on the rear). One kiss. One male character acts very effeminate. Someone cross-dresses.
Violence: There's a lot of slapstick violence here, even more so than the Despicable Me movies. At the beginning, the minions' former masters fall into a volcano, disintegrate, are blown into the air by a cannon, etc. The minions are taken to a torture chamber where they are nearly hanged and split in half. Various hits, punches, kicks, crashes and explosions, mostly by Scarlett. A carriage crashes. Two people are frozen. Someone is crushed by a chandelier. A minion swallows a bomb and explodes. Scarlett and the minions all cause various amounts of destruction in a high-scale climax action scene.
Drugs/Alcohol: One martini glass. One pub scene shows a few characters drinking beer.
Other: A sumo wrestler's (nearly fully-exposed) backside is spotted a few times by the camera. Bare minion backsides are shown in one scene also (one of the posters shows off the main three minion's derrieres also). One or two isolated bathroom giggles. Villainy, robbery, and crime are all shown in a somewhat positive (though cartoonishly silly) light.
