Once again I am watching a movie purely because I’m going to see its sequel later on. I am not sorry, deal with it.
In brief, Minions shares with us where the Minions themselves came from and their historical backstory. It turns out that they live purely to serve the most ‘despicable’ creatures they can find, but when suddenly they have no one to serve, they become sad and stationary. Ring leader Kevin sets out to find their tribe a new master, which sees them on a hilarious trip to Villaincon where they stumble upon a new, worthy boss: Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock). As she plans to take over the world, the Minions change their goals altogether.
I get that you probably don’t need to see this before Rise of Gru, but fuck it. What else would I do on a casual Tuesday off work?!
So yeah, Minions is a pretty pointless movie. But you can see what possessed Dreamworks to make it, since the minions themselves are ridiculously popular. I have to admit though, it is pretty fun to see them get up to all of these ludicrous shenanigans, even if the plot is kind of thin. Plus I have no doubt that it would keep screaming children quiet for at least 90 minutes, which is always a plus.
Since I am not a screaming child (most of the time), the human characters – as voiced by some of my favourite actors – were more entertaining to me. Bullock, Michael Keaton and Allison Janney voicing this stupid movie made it a little more gripping, especially since Bullock plays a badass female villain. I aspire to be like Scarlet Overkill, is what I’m saying.
It’s undeniable that the animation here is actually really great and the visuals have come a really long way since the first Despicable Me movie. Everything feels much more polished and shiny and well-rendered, so at least that’s a step up. This works really well alongside some actually decent humour, although I wouldn’t say I laughed out loud at much of it. Nevertheless, it’s mostly watchable until it starts to drag towards the end.
Other than a banging soundtrack, Minions is pretty run-of-the-mill by animated film standards. Casting Jennifer Saunders as The Queen is masterful though, so all is not lost. It’s fun enough, but not a complete success.
Minions is available to stream on Sky Cinema and Now TV in the UK.
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