MINIONS & MONSTERS - - An Ode to Cinema

Review by Adam Donato

It’s crazy curious how the Minions in particular have evolved in the public eye. They were just these cute, little side characters in the first movie and took the world by storm. Despicable Me 2 cemented them as popular culture staples. This popularity allowed the Minions to spin off into their own franchise to which audiences started to feel the over exposure. Despicable Me 3 regressed at the domestic box office, but improved in the worldwide box office. The pandemic would lead to the biggest time gap between entries in the franchise as it took five years for another movie to come out. Minions: Rise of Gru is the domestic highest grossing movie of the franchise as it became this gigantic in-joke where young audiences were ironically dressing up for screenings, which led to lucrative box office success. Despicable Me 4 found similar success and now we are getting another Minions movie with Minions & Monsters. The Minions are a defining part of popular culture and even the biggest critics of the franchise have resigned to the franchise’s lasting success.

The purpose of the Minions is to serve the most evil boss they can find. After covering their origin in the first movie and the beginning of their relationship with Gru in the second movie, where left is there to go with these characters? Minions & Monsters is a prequel to the sequel to the spinoff. The best idea this movie has is to be a love letter to cinema. In this movie, the Minions get involved in the movie making business as three best friend Minions go on a mission to make their own monster movie. The movie is littered with references to cinema history as the Minions shenanigan their way through some of the most important classics of all time. Honestly brilliant direction because families will already eat up a Minions movie so all that’s left is to satiate the critics who usually give these movies middling ratings. What do cinephiles love more than the movies?

The core relationship in the film is between the Minions James, Henry and Ed. James dreams of being a storyteller and when he’s introduced to the medium of cinema, he feels like he’s found his true calling. His two friends support him along the way as they conjure a ruthless monster for their movie, played by Trey Parker. This is his second role in the franchise as he previously voiced the villainous Balthazar Bratt in Despicable Me 3. He’s one of the defining voice actors of this century and he’s a joy to listen to in this movie. He has a distinct voice and he’ll have you in stitches with just the way he says “movie”. The relationship between these four characters is something that holds the movie back just a bit as the trio dynamic isn’t different enough compared to previous Minion trio and their bond isn’t really as strong. That being said, nobody is going to the Minions movies for impactful character arcs. Once the actual plot of making the monster movie kicks in, the movie does lose its speed a bit and the Minions limelight is kind of stolen by some of the human side characters.

There’s a curious collection of voice actors for the human side characters that are jammed into this story. Jesse Eisenberg shows up midway through the movie as one of the new potential evil bosses for the Minions who are not sold on the filmmaking venture. He’s a robot that keeps heralding some apocalyptic invasion. This mission of his gets derailed when he experiences love at first sight with a woman’s rights protestor, voiced by Zoey Deutch. This feels like a departure from the plot, but it’s an interesting curveball. Jeff Bridges voices a couple of burly movie studio executives, which one sounds more like him than the other. Christoph Waltz and Allison Janney round out the human supporting cast, but the standout is a small role for legendary filmmaker George Lucas. He has such an infamous personality and it’s funny to see him in the world of cinema for the first time in years.

Minions & Monsters is a fun cartoon that throws back the audience to the early days of movie making. The Minions get into plenty of shenanigans and some wacky sequences ensue. It’s a colorful movie with a fun and light soundtrack. Arguably the second best movie in the entire franchise. It cannot be understated how undeniably charming this movie’s reverence for cinema is. It’s a good time at the movies and that’s what the summer is all about.

Minions & Monsters stomps its way into theaters July 1st!

Rating: 3/5