MINIONS

GRADE: C
Starring Pierre Coffin, Sandra Bullock, Michael Keaton, Jon Hamm, Allison Janney
Written by Bryan Lynch
Directed by Kyle Balda and Pierre Coffin
Rated PG (mild rude humor)

Reviewed by Paul & Patrick Gibbs

Remember all of those TV sitcom spin-offs from the 1970s,  '80s '90s?  Remember how, most of the time our favorite sidekick characters that stole the show didn't really work when carrying the burden on their own?  That's how Minions feels. The alternately funny, lovable and annoying characters from Despicable Me are now called on to star in a film without Steve Carell's Gru, and while they still sometimes manage to be funny and lovable, they also have their irritating moments. There may be times when you find yourself thinking that this is how Star Wars Anthology: The Legend of Jar Jar Binks would play.

The plot offers a fairly amusing but not particularly necessary origin story for the Twinkie shaped heroes, who since the beginning of time have searched for someone to call their master. After several failures, the three most prominent Minions, Kevin, Stuart and Bob, set off to ave the tribe by finding someone "despicable" enough to lead them. Soon they become aware of an event called Villain Con, where diabolical flavor of the month Scarlet Overkill (voiced by Sandra Bullock) will make her public debut. Scarlet seems to be exactly what they're looking for, but if she were the first two Despicable Me movies would have turned out a lot different.

While the Minions are better suited to playing supporting rather lead roles and definitely have moments where they test your patients to an extreme, they're still the best part of the movie. At their best their both funny and lovable, and have an anarchic sensibility which evokes the Animaniacs or even the Marx Brothers. And in a few spots they even have a surprising amount of heart.  The real problem is, while some strong human characters are badly needed to balance things out (because you really do get sick of "bedo" and other gibberish words being the only dialogue you hear after a while), the human characters in this film are appallingly unfunny. This despite the talents of Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton and plenty of others. Every moment centering on the humans is a bit of a chore to sit through. And while there were plenty of laughs from the audience of children, there were also stretches where the seemed bored. Still, overall they will likely have fun, and if you're part of the crowd that unreservedly loves the little yellow goofballs, you'll probably will as well.

Minions suffers from comparison to the exquisite Inside Out, its main competition for the family audience.  But its core audience will likely have a good time, but the real mistake here is that any theater screening it should sell Twinkies at the concession stand. "I could go for a Twinkie" is likely to be the most frequently recurring thought. This is really a film for children or hardcore Minion fans. If you don't fall into either category you may be sporadically entertained, but you're likely to get bored. Like The Penguins of Madagascar, Minions demonstrates that the ability to steal scenes is a a very different thing from the ability to carry a movie.