-Every minion ever created in the existence of time.
Wow! I can't believe I saw this opening day and forgot to review it....oops. Well, anyway, I'm doing it now and I'll try and make it quick. I loved the first two Despicable Me movies, and whether they were planned or just a happy accident, the minions were the funniest comedy relief to Gru's evilness. Not only are they an enigma, but they're so cute. Parents love them, children love them, heck I bet they have minion chew toys so your dogs could love them. With each Despicable Me movie earning a ton of cash it's a no brainer that the studio would try and put these cute, yellow, tic tac looking creatures in their own film. When the trailers came out and we got to see it would be about what they did before Gru, and the fact that I was dying laughing and loving what they posted in the trailer what could go wrong for this behemoth?
Well....a lot. But, before I really dive into this film I do want to mention that if your a parent and want to take your kids to see something that will entertain them then yes, this is a good film for kids; however, the Despicable Me movies did the Pixar approach in that kids and adults alike loved it, while Minions is really aimed just toward the kiddies. You'd still get a kick or two of laughter, but there isn't a whole lot of new material that will make you as engaged as your kids.
Now going back to the trailer, I was amazed at just how much of the movie was in the trailer. The trailer was basically the points of the movie, and that's really disappointing because there wasn't a whole lot of good jokes that weren't in the trailers. That and the marketing for this was so huge that when they did get to my favorite jokes from the trailer I only mildly chuckled.
With the Despicable Me movies, the best part of the minions was that there were a bunch of them, and each one was playing off each other and creating zaniness squired. And after watching this film, the only times I really enjoyed the minions was when we'd go back to the big group waiting for Bob, Stuart, and Kevin they're comedy was really funny. I loved how they acted and when they got a great idea everyone was happy until they killed their Yeti overlords and it's that type of comedy I was looking for, but the film focuses on only three minions, and while they tried to give them an arc, and they had cute times, it just didn't work unless they were all together.
I loved the concept that there was a villain-con and the minions were going there to find their new master, I thought that was brilliant, but when the story line finally got to that section it felt very underwhelming. To begin with it started out as a road trip with a family of bank robbers, and boy was I surprised when the dad took out a gun and cocked it. I think this was the first time I saw a gun in a kids movie in years, and the fact I actually uttered "whoa" when that scene came up really tells you how times have changed and in that I do have to give kudos to the film. Not only that, but when the minions were thrown into the dungeon with all the torture equipment, all these dangerous contraptions, they made it funny. I never thought I'd laugh at minions failing to be hanged, or stretched to death and finding out they have stretchy bodies.
But the most underwhelming part of the movie were the human characters. The minions work off humans so well, but the film seemed to be focusing on what outrageous thing can minions interact with, than focusing on the comedy between how different they are to humans. Granted there was a very nice scene where Bob plays with Tim (his teddy bear) and the evil job person says "That's not evil, nor a talent" and Bob just gets frustrated. I really wish that was the whole movie, but alas it was not. Surprising to say, but Sandra Bullock was barely in the movie. They were always saying she was the best in the world, but man did I not see that. She just felt like a generic villain, and when she was finally defeated by a kid at the end (wink wink) it just solidified that she was a weak villain.
I'll say the voice acting was at times good, but sometimes you could hear in the actor's voices that this was just another job. And speaking of voices, the fact that you don't really understand the minions (and if you know a few languages you'll catch familiar words) really made the film slow. I'm not exactly sure why, but I kind of wished they were silent and it would have made a great movie with them just laughing and grunting.
Either way, at the end of this day Minions is a fine film with an okay script. Parents won't roll their eyes (too much) when taking their kids to see this, but with kids being the primary target for this movie they'll love and adore this. With Minions being so marketable and funny, the kids were busting a gut in my theater, Minions will make a ton of money and we'll most likely see another Minion film.
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