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| Stuart and Bob as bananas in "Minions" |
Director: Kyle Balda; Pierre Coffin
Quality (out of four): ★
After the hits that were the Despicable Me films and their tiny yellow breakout stars, a feature-film starring the talking Twinkies was inevitable. Illumination Entertainment has really outdone itself by creating a film so casually animated, humorless, unoriginal, and mind-numbing that it seems as if it's purposely trying to lower the bar beneath the ground for films aimed at children. That fact is unfortunate because mainstream audiences consistently find it difficult to watch animated films without the company of a child because they believe they're not created for them and they won't enjoy them. The other unfortunate fact is that "Minions" affirms those prejudices. It's not just a film not created for adults; it's not created for adults, kids, wizards, dragons, penguins, robots, or anything capable of looking at a screen.
If you dig deep enough you may be able to mine a story out of this convoluted assembly of loosely related tales. That story involves the history of the minions from the beginnings of Earth to the present day. Their only wish is to serve the biggest, baddest master they can find but every time they succeed -- whether it's a Tyrannosaurus Rex, or a vampire -- they accidentally cause the demise of their treasured bad guy. It's a half-heartedly funny premise that could have been executed throughout the entire film to become a story about the minions having to learn how to actually become valuable assets to their masters instead of terminal handicaps. Instead the film basically becomes the tale of how one so-called "brave minion" leads two companions on a mission to find a master villainous enough to give the entire minion race purpose again after years of having no one to serve.
Even the premise that the movie actually sets up has some inherent value. The idea of the minions suffering from a communal existential crisis could have given way to exploration of the minions internal psyche while still providing the zany goofs the minions are known for in a unique and original context. But the movie fails to execute anything. There is no logical progression, character development, stakes high or low, and nothing valuable to say about anything. In fact, the movie has absolutely no thoughts -- valuable or worthless. What we have is a film that is essentially braindead trying to navigate the complex waters of narrative storytelling comparable to a cricket trying to read brail.
What the movie ends up giving us is a series of episodes. One of those episodes involves the biggest, baddest villain on the planet Scarlet Overkill who could have also been named Scarlet Underkill based on Sandra Bullock's blasé performance. The minions win her admiration by a shed of good look and she entrusts them to steal the crown from the Queen of England, which she has wanted since she was little. Another story involves Bob being crowned the King of England for being capable of removing the sword from the legendary sword in stone. And yet another involves Kevin having to save his compadres after Scarlet becomes the Queen.
What's most depressing about the entire experience is that the movie is boring. Even the kids were fidgeting and getting anxious; asking to go to the bathroom every five minutes because they were sure they wouldn't miss much. The laughs are non-existent and I could count my chuckles on one finger. For a film that has so much going on, the entertainment value is low. It's noisy, irritating, and downright annoying. The minions don't have half the charm as the Little Green Men from the Toy Story films. They're are about as cute as a mosquito landing on your arm to suck your blood.
Outside of it's atrocious story, the animation and designs are so obviously second-class that the Blu-Ray of this film should be sold at Lackluster. The minions are all interchangeable and have no defining characteristics outside of their shape. The humans all have some sort of anorexia complex, and the environments are done at the bare minimum. There were times throughout the film where the dialogue didn't seem to come from the character. It seemed as if there was a live-action actor recording his or her voice in a studio to be placed over the animated character mouthing off the words. Willing suspension of disbelief wasn't even achieved at the de facto level when it comes to this film.
There is nothing to admire, praise, or congratulate here. Maybe that it succeeded in being worse than even my most pessimistic predictions but that's hardly an accolade. Maybe that the film will be successful anyway despite it's overwhelming flaws both technically and narratively. Maybe that it's another attempt to clearly desensitize audiences to the horrors of bad filmmaking in the name of being "a kid's movie". Movies are movies and they're for everyone. But no one who wants to be moved, enlightened, or taught will find anything of value in this 91 minutes. Kiah Simons
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