Directors: Pierre Coffin, Kyle Balda
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Pierre Coffin, Allison Janney, Michael Keaton, Jennifer Saunders, Steve Coogan, Geoffrey Rush
The unbelievable success of the Despicable Me films likely stems from the mass popularity of Gru’s small yellow workers, The Minions. Five years on from their first appearance, their very own spin off is hitting cinemas but there’s some doubt as to how well the adoration of these heroes will translate into a successful standalone adventure. A third Despicable Me film is already in the works but this is vital to the series’ continuation after that.
By 1968, the Minions (a race dedicated to serving evil) find themselves washed up and directionless without a master. Three brave Minions – Kevin (Coffin), Stuart (Coffin) and Bob (Coffin) – journey to New York in search of someone to serve. After finally winning the employment and adoration of Scarlet Overkill (Bullock), the world’s first female supervillain, they soon become embroiled in a plot to become rulers of England.
The first ten or so minutes of Minions are pure genius. Set to the track of The Turtles’ Happy Together, their evolution is traced from their origin as single celled organisms and then as they journey onto land. Through the years they attach themselves to various masters (including a T-Rex, Dracula and Napoleon) but all in vain as the Minions lead the villains to an untimely demise. The sequence is ingenious with some fantastically smart sight gags (eg: convincing a caveman to take on a bear with a fly swatter) but unfortunately the film does lose pace after that.
After this, three of our tiny heroes travel to New York and in a series of inexplicably hilarious but undoubtedly episodic and forced situations wind up at the ’68 Orlando Villain-Con (a hub on wannabe wrong-doers) and later London at the height of Beetlemania. While this does provide an excellent excuse to pack one of the year’s best soundtracks with some glorious British rock icons (The Who, The Kinks, The Spencer Davies Group, The Monkees).
The most hilarious parts of Minions come at its most silliest but it lacks the emotional impact of Despicable Me’s genuinely touching moments such as Gru slowly coming to appreciate his relationship with his adopted daughters. This spin-off struggles to have these charming heart-to-heart moments that distinguished the previous instalments.
The voice cast of this film is hardly a let down but is still fairly standard. Gravity’s Oscar winner Sandra Bullock hogs the limelight as Scarlet Overkill, a shrieky, malevolent and overall unempathable villain. The rest of the cast are fairly tolerable however with Mad Men’s Jon Hamm voicing Scarlet’s inventor husband Herb, Allison Janney and Michael Keaton as amateur villain odd couple Walter and Madge and some excellent audio cameos from Brit talent such as Jennifer Saunders as Queen Elizabeth, Steve Coogan as a trio of hapless Beefeaters and Geoffrey Rush narrating.
This doesn’t distract from the fact that the Minions themselves are evidently the lead stars. Director Pierre Coffin’s voice work in a nonsensical hybrid gibberish providing the bulk of the narrative for ninety minutes could have been head-ache inducing but thanks to the personalisation of the three leads – Stuart’s leadership, Bob’s naivety, Kevin’s nonchalant persona – we can easily get on board and root for the heroes, if not so much the villains. Overall Minions is a greatly entertaining and ludicrously silly fan pleasing animation with its heart in the right place.
7/10
“And that is how the Minions found their new boss! He was cunning! He was evil! He was perfect! He was… despicable!”
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