Review of Minions (2015) by Agn — 16 Jul 2015

As a person that thought that liked the first two Despicable Me movies a lot, I thought it had something special about them. It had the villain named Gru who had a special love and care for the three orphan girls. However, the funniest thing about the movie was the minions that bring a lot of laughs that come in small doses. Now, the directors of Despicable Me take the minions into the lead role in their own movie and the result is a fun, uneven movie set in the 60’s.

Before Gru, the Minions were looking for a villain. They tried and failed so many times with a different villain. Now, the three minions under the names of Kevin, Stuart, and Bob must find a new villain where they face a lot of obstacles in their way.

The First act was clever and superbly written as it shows life of the yellow creatures from the beginning of time to the 1900’s with a cunning voice by Geoffrey Rush as the narrator. The second act got a bit more routine after they introduced Scarlet Overkill and set foot in London. The third act, however, got very out of control as too many things were all at once.

Pierre Coffin does the voices for the minions which gave me all the laughs I could get and probably could. Scarlet Overkill’s character (Sandra Bullock), however, was tediously developed although Sandra did a good job of voicing her. I don’t want to spoil the rest of the cast but Scarlet’s husband (Joe Hamm) was cunning and witty as Hamm does a wonderful voiceover by him. The rest, however, are a mixed bag.

While the animation isn’t as good as Inside Out, Illumination Studios still does a great job of lighting everything and make great use of the textures. One fine example of this was Scarlet Overkill. When they showed her at the Villain-Con, her hair was bright and her dress was sleek. That was some of the best animation Illumination has ever done along with the water. There was also a mid-film bedtime story where the stop motion was so-so. The best animation was at the beginning where it was superbly hand-drawn where it showed the minions that were under the sea.

While I laughed a lot at the minions from the beginning, I also fell half asleep as the movie continued on when they were at London. I just felt like they were too much for those yellow dudes. It almost felt like they completely run out of energy by the end of the movie. Another thing is that when there was two moments when some people were just in their underwear, it completely offended me and I had to look away. I think that they were preparing kids for PG-13/R rated movies. However, the beginning and the end were the best parts. What made the beginning and the end so fun was that it was clearly narrated and in the end, they introduced young Gru.

Honestly, the selection of 60’s songs were a nice return being a fan of 60’s music. That means that they have tracks from The Kinks, The Who, and The Beatles and most of the 60’s songs work well on scenes especially the chaos for queen’s crown works out very well with the song of “You Really Got Me”.

All in all, I thought Minions didn’t reach the efforts of the Despicable Me movies. While Minions has laughter, colorful animation, some nice characters and song selections. Minions also has an uneven plot, some undeveloped characters, and things that may offend caring moms. To have a full satisfying experience, watch the end credits where you will get laughs with the minions and Gru. Call me a Gru fan but I really liked it more when the minions were with Gru the villain.