Minions

Voices of: Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan, Jennifer Saunders, Geoffrey Rush, Steve Carrell, Pierre Coffin
Directed by: Kyle Balda, Pierre Coffin
Rating: PG
Genre: Animation, Comedy
2015

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: The Minions search the globe for a new villainous master, and finally settle on Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock).

Review:

Tim: After very much not enjoying Despicable Me or its sequel, I was quite unenthusiastic about the prequel, Minions. The minions were decent comedy relief (although I've never found them especially funny myself). It seemed like an odd choice to build a movie around them. This film is worse than the first two films, yet it made a ton of money. I feel like for most animated films, I get it- the ones that I think are good tend to do pretty well financially, and the ones I dislike tend to do more poorly (with exceptions, of course). This is one franchise I just don't get, yet seems to appeal to a wide audience. Oh well.

I have to say that I found the minions' dialogue of utter nonsense quite annoying. It's okay in small doses, but when the main characters all speak gibberish, it tends to get on your nerves. It didn't even make sense, as their meaningless speak was peppered with English and Spanish words. It was disorienting and I didn't care for it. Thankfully, there are enough characters who speak actual languages to partially balance this out.

The minions all seem interchangeable- that's part of who they are, right? The yellow characters have their own unique markers, but for the most part, we think about them collectively. Not so here, as we meet Kevin, Stuart, and Bob. I didn't care about them at all. Throughout the film, I suppose you kind of get to know them- Kevin is the leader, Bob has a teddy bear, and Stuart likes guitars. That's about the extent of the character development you get in this film. The fact that you can't connect with the protagonists was a major drawback. For that reason, I kind of rooted for the villains to win. Unfortunately, they are only slightly more interesting. Sandra Bullock headlines the cast as the villainous Scarlet Overkill. She wants to rule England and is a charismatic speaker. None of it seemed particularly interesting.

There are a few positives- the animation was quite impressive. It's nice to try and absorb yourself into this colorful world. I thought it looked very good on the screen. I also have to say that while I didn't care for the prequel angle at first, I was very impressed with how the film connected to the original movies. It was kind of cool to learn why the minions wear overalls. I also liked the direct connection to the first two movies at the end of this one. That was clever and interesting and provided a bit more backstory for the minions and where they are in Despicable Me. I legitimately enjoyed that aspect.

Unfortunately, as a whole, Minions is a pretty bad movie. It is meant to appeal to children and it never really expands outside that demographic. I don't believe I laughed once. This isn't a very appealing or entertaining movie. The minions get annoying very quickly and aren't nearly interesting enough to carry a movie on their own. I get putting them front and center for marketing purposes, but everyone involved had to know they would take a big quality hit by doing that. No one would claim this is one of the best animated movies of the year. It's another failure in the quality department.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Despicable Me, Despicable Me 2