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Sandra Bullock in scarlet but not in character

B-As every movie buff or child under 12 knows, Minions are those rascally but charming, yellow, pill-shaped, one- and two-eyed critters with goggles who helped the nefarious Gru launch his evil schemes in the Despicable Me movies. Following in the footsteps of the penguins from the Madagascar films, these adorable saffron sidekicks have now landed their own animated movie, entitled simply Minions. However, like the penguins, the Minions prove to be best enjoyed in smaller doses.

A brief prologue (narrated by Geoffrey Rush) traces the history of the Minions from prehistoric times, as they continually seek out the most evil villain around to serve. In 1968, three Minions, Kevin, Stuart, and Bob (all the Minions are voiced by co-director Pierre Coffin) arrive at the Villain-Con convention in Orlando in search of a new master. They find one, or, more precisely a mistress, in the world’s ultimate supervillain Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock). The Minions are soon off to London with Scarlett and her husband Herb (Jon Hamm) where Scarlet gives her new henchmen the assignment of stealing Queen Elizabeth’s crown. The Minions soon find that their efforts wind up pitting them against Scarlett herself.

As in the Despicable Me movies, the Minions are always adorably cuddly and fun to watch as they cheerfully engage in Three Stooges-styled slapstick and spout a strange form of half-comprehensible gibberish that mixes English and a multitude of other languages. However, their antics soon become repetitive and, although, the script gives the three lead Minions names, they never become much more than half-formed personalities. The Minions share this latter trait with their human co-stars, especially the Overkills. The script fails to properly exploit the potential of a female supervillain in the highly sexist 60’s; instead, Scarlet winds up being quite generic. In fact, other than lots of great period rock tunes on the soundtrack, Minions fails to really evoke the 60’s at all. Thus, the best running jokes for the adults in the audience are the tunes like “Hair” and “Hey Hey We’re the Monkees” that the Minions manage to mangle in Minionese. Kids, of course, will love the lengthy, drawn out battle between Scarlett and the Minions, especially in 3D, but adults’ patience will probably begin to wear thin, at least until a surprise cameo at the end provides a welcome boost. Like its namesakes, Minions is hard not to like, but adults will be hard pressed to develop any more affection for the movie than for any of the millions of Minions  tie-in products already flooding the market.
Continue reading on Minions: Mini-review »

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