Minions
(2015)
It doesn’t
take a genius to see why the Minions are such a phenomenon, surpassing the Despicable Me franchise that spawned
them (or rather, they’re now enshrined as the underpinning for its massive
success). That doesn’t make Minions a
great movie, though. It’s as agreeably slipshod and pasted together as you’d
expect from an attempt to beat supporting characters into the position of
leads, but it nevertheless represents something of a pinnacle as a spin-off and prequel that’s successful in its own
right. Usually they stink.
Penguins of Madagascar dealt with the prequel bit in its
opening scene, which was also the best scene in a rather sorry affair that,
like Minions, struggled to find a tale
worth telling. Minions is more
transparent in its deficiencies there. It doesn’t even bother trying to explain
why such cute, imitable and well-meaning ba-nana-loving fellows are obsessed
with serving evil masterminds. They just are. So we get the lowdown on what
they did before joining Gru, at its best during a highly inventive (yes)
prologue in which they join, and unwittingly undermine, various bosses throughout
history, leading to the extinction of the dinosaurs, the demise of ancient
Egypt, a brief spell with Count Dracula and an alliance with the
always-good-for-a-height-gag Napoleon.
And
fetching up in the ‘60s is a massively advantageous decision, since it means
the rest of the plot can be strung together with pop hits from the era (with additional
help from Geoffrey Rush’s engaging narrator). Not since the early days of
DreamWorks Animation has a cartoon feature so shrewdly employed pop songs. Did
you ever expect to hear The Doors in a kids’ movie? Should they have? I have no
idea. This is a feature featuring a humorous interlude in which a giant Kevin appears
to take a whizz.
Kevin,
Stuart and Bob find themselves a new despicable boss in the form of Sandra Bullock’s
Scarlet Overkill, before embarking for Swinging London. She’s a reasonable but
unremarkable villain, much as the ‘60s England setting starts off well (police
drinking tea during a high-speed pursuit) but descends into rather desperate spitballing
that finds Bob crowned king and Kevin inflated to the aforementioned enormous
size. You’re never far from something
engaging, though, be it Bob’s friendship with a rat, Scarlet Overkill reading The Three Little Pigs to the three
little Minions, the hypno-hat (great use of Hair,
with guards reduced to their underwear) or irreverent asides (“Do you think its funny, to mock the elderly?”
asks the Keeper of the Crown; “Yeah” comes
the reply).
I guess
returning Despicable Me (co-)director
Pierre Coffin could hardly have passed on duties seeing as how he also voices
the trio of Minions. It’s a terrifically inventive, catchy performance(s), but has
limited scope for variation, which definitely means the entire movie consists
of casting around for things to do. It’s only a surprise Minions is as sustained as it is, that it even got far enough to
run out of interesting things to do in the last third. As such, it seems
churlish to complain that it might have been better, since I’m not sure it
could have been. It exists purely for the cash/merchandising wee ones will get
their parents to put down, which means there’s sure be a Minions 2 after Despicable Me
3. A billon dollars worldwide guarantees it.
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