Joel on Film

The first spin-off film, arriving in 2015, suggested that the Minions were actually a species that evolved with the rest of the planet, as opposed to extra-terrestrial in nature. Their biological impulse was to gravitate toward the most villainous of whatever species—in their case, the homo sapiens—was right above theirs on the food chain. Over the course of the series, we saw that in a fashion that always brought them and us back to the same villain-turned-antihero-turned-actual-hero—who thankfully does not appear anywhere in Minions & Monsters, which allows the Minions to be themselves for once.

This movie, which is set a few decades before their arrival in the life of that series’ protagonist, further suggests that the very history of Hollywood itself owes a lot to the diminutive fellows, all of whom are once again voiced by co-writer/director Pierre Coffin. The most important ones here, a narrator voiced by Allison Janney tells us, are Henry and James, and the only real way to tell them apart are the fact that James has one eye while Henry has them both. Otherwise, these little guys are the same, as are every one of the other Minions, which has always been sort of a problem with them as more than built-in merchandising opportunities.

Coffin and co-screenwriter Chris Renaud basically bypass this problem by focusing entirely upon these two, who are seen as weirdos among their tribe for the various different ideas they have. At least, that’s what one has to imagine the problem to be, since these characters speak in a tongue that combines basic English, a Romance language or two and actual gibberish into what Coffin vomits into his microphone. They’re still not really characters in any genuine sense of the term, but by diluting our exposure to the entire group and focusing on two of them, the filmmakers make them tolerable.

These might seem like tiny measures, but they make all the difference in a movie that amounts to nothing more than a series of escapades in which the Minions find themselves in one predicament or another. A montage at the beginning shows us a long string of villains and/or conniving figures of royalty or piracy whom the Minions have followed, only to lead them all to their doom in some way. The darkest one is definitely the dozy demise of a queen of England, which certainly announces the subversive humor of this story.

Eventually, a plot does develop (following a framing device in which Janney’s narrator, a tour guide, leads some families through an exhibit of old Hollywood—including a major movie director, gamely voicing a version of himself being held captive for the audience): After ruining a scene in his upcoming movie, a pretentiously European director (voiced by Christoph Waltz) realizes the money he could print by making a movie with the Minions (quite the meta reference, that) and sets out to appease a couple of twin Hollywood producers (both voiced by Jeff Bridges). Unfortunately for him, having swiped a wizard’s spellbook in some previous life, the Minions summon into reality a creature of all-consuming destruction.

Well, no, they summon the equally diminutive Goomi (voice of Trey Parker, playing a different character than the one he portrayed in 2017’s Despicable Me 3), who offers to lead Henry and James to the actual monsters that they want (voiced, once we get to them, by Phil LaMarr and Bobby Moynihan). It somehow all leads to the city under threat from an awakened blob.

Before that point, though, the movie is a surprisingly funny and inspired send-up of the early days of Hollywood—from the silent cinema of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd to the blockbusters of the 1930s in which some monster threatened the peaceful world. Kids in the audience probably won’t get a lot of those jokes, of course. For adults who know a little better, it’ll be a form of bliss right from the start, where everyone should recognize a Minion with a cannon-propelled capsule stuck in his eye, and all the way through the climax, which has a massive creature doing battle with armed forces.

The less said about a subplot following Dort (voice of Jesse Eisenberg), a supposedly villainous robot who develops a soft spot for activist Debbie (voice of Zoey Deutch), the better. It’s not as if Minions & Monsters suddenly propels this franchise into any sort of territory resembling “special,” because a few of the usual hang-ups do remain. We have to recognize real inspiration when it arrives, though, and this movie, more than almost any of the previous ones, understands the value of silliness.

Rating: *** (out of ****)