Official Trailer
Rating: 0/10 | Genre: Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, Fantasy | Runtime: 90 min
Starring: Pierre Coffin, Trey Parker, Allison Janney, Christoph Waltz, Jeff Bridges
Look, I went into this movie with zero expectations and somehow still left disappointed. That’s saying something.
The premise is actually kind of fun. The Minions basically take over Hollywood, become A-list celebrities, and then accidentally release a bunch of monsters that threaten to destroy everything. It’s stupid, sure, but stupid can work if it’s executed well. This movie doesn’t execute it well.
The first thirty minutes are genuinely entertaining. The Minions are doing Minion things. They’re bumbling around, saying their gibberish language, and there are some decent jokes about celebrity culture. Trey Parker is clearly having a blast voicing one of the main characters, and you can feel his energy lifting scenes that would otherwise fall flat. Allison Janney shows up as some kind of Hollywood producer and she’s fine. Christoph Waltz phones it in as the villain, but honestly that might be for the best because the villain plot barely matters.
Then the movie hits the halfway point and just loses the plot. Literally. The pacing completely falls apart. Characters disappear for chunks of time. The monster subplot gets introduced and it’s treated like this huge deal, but the movie never bothers to explain why the Minions release these monsters or what they want. It’s just chaos for chaos’s sake.
The animation is decent enough. Nothing special but it gets the job done. There’s this one scene where the Minions are surfing on a tidal wave made of monsters that looks pretty cool. That’s probably the visual highlight.
Jeff Bridges is basically wasted here. He’s in maybe five scenes and doesn’t get anything funny to do. Pierre Coffin does the voice work for the Minions and he carries as much of this movie as humanly possible, but even he can’t save some of the truly groan-worthy jokes.
By the time we hit the final act, where the Minions supposedly “band together to save the planet,” it feels rushed and unearned. We don’t actually care if they succeed because we’ve spent the last thirty minutes rolling our eyes at everything.
Ninety minutes is a pretty short runtime for a movie, and this one still feels too long. That should tell you something.
If you’ve got kids who love the Minions, they might get some kicks out of this. Everyone else should probably skip it. Have you seen any other animated comedies lately that actually stuck the landing?
Where to Watch
Streaming availability varies by region. Check your favorite streaming platform to see if this title is available in your country.