Minions
An overdose...
When the original Despicable Me came out we were all charmed by the yellow skinned, bald, multilingual, overalls wearing minions. The movie was a blast but wouldn’t be as fun without them. From their introduction to becoming inclusive to the plot in the sequel, it was only a matter of time before these cute critters’ starpower grant them a full feature. Their time is now since their film was released last week. Continue reading to find out whether it is para tu ou pas.
A strong start
What makes the minions so god damn adorable is their ability to make us laugh with clever slapstick while spurting out gibberish. Their main purpose in life is to help the most despicable villain but they are good natured at heart, which ends up making them personable. It was brilliant how the Despicable Me movies were able to make us like henchmen like never before. They made thievery, terrorism and destruction look like acts of kindness, almost.
The first act of Minions delves on how they came to be from the prehistoric age to modern days. At this point it is difficult to tell whether they are immortal or not but it doesn’t matter; they always lived to serve the most baddass of them all; from the T-Rex to the Pharaohs. It is even possible to extrapolate the minions are responsible for the great era changes, such as the extinction of dinosaurs. These parts had the audience (including my friends and I) laughing its ass off incessantly. Unfortunately that situation would change soon.
Déjà vu
The problem with Minions is repetition. They were previously used by Illumination Studios in very small amounts, which proved to be a winning formula, but nobody questioned whether or not 90 minutes of miniature 3 Stooges and phonetics would actually work. A Minion’s love for Bananas and “Popples” is funny and cute the first time, but it gets old fast.
Once the minions find their new evil overlord (the end goal of the first act), the movie goes down in a spiral of linear clichés. They fail at their job, they are betrayed, they can’t be harmed so we never feel any real danger and ultimately; they save the day.
““But Nate this is a kids movie!””
I would agree with you if I didn’t look over the cute nature of the minions themselves. I mentioned earlier how they can make evil things look all fun and games but they even get away with murder due to their charm! They are oblivious to their crimes and destruction the whole time, even putting their own in danger. I may over analyze this but at least in Despicable Me there was a positive moral to the story about how someone could overcome their evil nature.
In Minions it’s just pure illogical carnage and if I was an impressionable kid I’d totally think it’s okay to break things as long as I’m adorable.
There’s also only so much minion speech you can handle in a single movie before you get fed up. Maybe I’m bitter because it was a cheapy Tuesday and the gang next to me kept repeating their lines as obnoxiously as possible. I have nothing against people having fun but after an hour you’d expect a sane adult to stop going apeshit after a character says “par-la!”. Yeah the minions speak English, French, Italian and Spanish, get over it. It also makes it incredibly annoying to try to follow the storyline, no matter how simple it is when most lines you hear sound like gibberish.
The Verdict
Minions has great visuals. It’s colorful, the animation makes everything look funnier and the attention to details is outstanding; it solidifies Illumination as one of the best. Veterans Sandra Bullocks and Jon Hamm were not able to spice up the script (or lack thereof) with their dull voice acting. The copy-pasted story made it feel like the movie was twice as long as it should have been. No amount of Stuart, Kevin or the adorable Bob could save this movie; their repetitive shenanigans are the comedy’s weakest point in my opinion.
This is a great example of trailers being exceedingly better than the full product. The best jokes were all used in trailer 1 and 2, leaving very little surprise in the theater. What a disappointment when compared to Inside Out. A 2 out of 5 for the effort. Now go make that pet movie as good as its reveal trailer!
