The little yellow monsters of Despicable Me are back, but this time without Gru (or almost). Kevin, Stuart, and Bob are three minions who travel to Orlando from their home and away from their tribe, to find themselves the biggest and baddest villain to serve. Like most, I was really excited about the minions getting their own movies. I mean I’m not passing on an hour and a half of stupidities and good animation, but I must say that I was worried of being bored. The minions are funny, but they don’t have much more appeal than that. I was really surprised by how much I liked it, even if it started rather slowly.
Let’s be honest, it’s completely dumb, but it’s the minions so I knew what I was getting myself into. In the first few sequences, we follow the minions from prehistory to the 60s, serving several well-known baddies (a T-Rex, a Caveman, Dracula, Napoleon, and even Yetis), until they find the VillainCon and Scarlet Overkill. Up to this point, I had trouble getting into the story, as the exposition is too long and their journey to Orlando is frankly not really exciting. But they found a good rhythm and stuck with it, mixing minions and characters with frantic dance numbers and epic looking gadgets and dresses.
However, in the exception of a few, the speaking characters are too much. I would have watched a no story, 100% minions, sketch movie any day and not have to go through the Scarlett Overkill/Herb storyline. Those two characters are just annoying and their presence just doesn’t go well with the minions. Maybe it was the fact that the Minions weren’t with Gru, Margot, Agnes, or Edith but then again it wouldn’t have made a difference!
One of Minions‘ strongest points is the soundtrack. Oh the soundtrack, right out of the 60s! Funny thing was that the cinema we were at played some 60s songs before the showing which got my friend and I talking about Richard Curtis’ amazing movie The Boat that Rocked. The same songs played during the movie as well and it got us in such a great mood! Plus the bits with Hair and Make Em Laugh, made the musical theatre nerd in me very happy. That soundtrack really give rhythm to the action, making some scenes a hundred times more enjoyable to me.
What’s amazing with the minions, is that even if they don’t quite speak a language we understand, you know exactly what they want to say. What cracked me up is all the words in Spanish, French and a little bit of English, especially related to food (at the moules-frites part we lost our cool and couldn’t stop laughing). It’s easy to pick up that language! For example, to say “come” they say the Spanish word for eat which is “come” (double meaning for the win!). It’s just awesome and you get to learn a new language (all thanks to the amazing Pierre Coffin, voicing the minions).
Overall Minions would have been a wee bit better without some characters but ultimately it never fails to put a huge smile on your face. I’d say mission accomplished Mac Guff!
Rating: 3/5
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