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| Directed by |
Kyle Balda |
| Produced by |
Janet Healy |
| Written by | Brian Lynch |
| Starring | |
| Narrated by | Geoffrey Rush |
| Music by | Heitor Pereira |
| Edited by | Claire Dodgson |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
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Release dates
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June 11, 2015 (London premiere) June 17, 2015 (Indonesia and Australia) July 10, 2015 (United States) |
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Running time
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91 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Hollywood just loves spin-offs. Time and time again, there will always be a secondary character in certain films who springs out of nowhere in the most memorable fashion possible. As a result, it is no sooner than later that the production house moguls begin scrambling for funds to make a stand-alone film with that character as the central performer. That is the case with Minions. Ask anybody the first thing that crossed filmgoers’ mind when talking about Despicable Me, then the Minions would stand out, even over an all-star cast like Steve Carrell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand and Kristen Wiig.
With their rise as simply its original’s brand ambassador, the Minions spin-off project surely grants every filmgoer’s wish. Though, every wish carries potential side effects. Question lingers as to whether the titular character can still captivate filmgoers given the longer screentime.
Gorgeously animated and jollily fun, Minions might not be revered for its derivative storytelling, but it marks the titular character’s triumphant coming-of-age from mere comic relief to a surprisingly more multi-faceted lead character.
One evil master to another …
Minions takes place 42 years before Despicable Me (2010) or as the trailer put it, B.G. (Before Gru). In the main, we are introduced to the Minions (Pierre Coffin), a tribe of tiny, yellowy creatures bound to serve the greatest villains in history. As we learn throughout the first act of the film, the Minions’ loyal service falls in contrast with the fate of their masters. Their good intentions always end up with the villains’ foolish demise.
Slowly, years without any villains to serve has driven the Minions’ lives purposeless. That is until three unlikely Minion-shaped heroes in Kevin, Stuart and Bob step up to the plate as they set off on a treacherous quest across sea to find their tribe that elusive master. In a twist of fate, a series of ludicrous coincidences brings them to Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock), a brilliant villainess who plans to steal Queen Elizabeth’s crown. Everything is at fine fettle before a small misunderstanding between both sides force the Minions to abandon their most sacred ideology. With the vengeance-driven Scarlet snapping at their heels, it is up to the Minions to foil her plan not only for the sake of their lives, but humanity as well.
Minions out of Water
The main headache for writer Brian Lynch and director Pierre Coffin are to alter the Minions’ role from mere comic relief to a story driver. On the surface, it looks like a rare occasion in modern cinematic works these days that non-speaking characters are trusted to drive a story forward in a manner as spellbinding as those Chaplin-esque silent movie tropes. As is the case with spin-offs, they need to also expand Despicable Me’s universe with an intriguing back-story to match its titular character’s fun-loving presence. To that end, Minions comes out on top. Though, the narrative’s underlying theme would not be the film’s most revered quality as it seems to drift with the tide of previous greats.
An example of that can be seen from the narrative’s fish-out-of-water theme. One fact we cannot rule out is that this theme is almost every animators’ go-to weapon to reach closer towards its target audience. For a second, imagine correlating the small town kid in a big city parable with the Minions’ generally child-like personality, then incorporating them into the big city situation seems like a perfect fit in theory.
As unoriginal as the story is, it somehow makes a perfect fit when it comes into practice. Playing the hero, it is quite clear that the trio of Minion leads (Kevin, Stuart and Bob) is the personification of the fish role. A fervent Despicable Me fan might say that the trio is actually spiritual successors to Gru’s orphaned daughters (Margo, Edith and Agnes). All in all, identifying the little yellow henchmen as curiosity-driven children in the fish-out-of-water story ends up not only maintaining their comic relief role, but also add an extra layer of believability people can relate to.
Back to the 60’s
Nine times out of ten people would judge the quality of animated films like Minions based on style. If you go deeper into the pure definition of the word “style” itself in the cinematic realm, then the first thing that comes to mind would be the eye-catching imageries. As the world goes, most of the memorable eye-catching imageries come from the living avatars in the foreground. People can be easily swayed by watching the litheness and cuteness of moving pictures come to life through something human-shaped or animal-shaped. Though, those qualities would not function well over a plain white sheet. The relevance of an equally eye-catching background to bring the level of excitement up a notch cannot be overlooked.
The same goes with the Despicable Me films. Gru and his motley crew would not gain that much cult following without the makeshift evil lair and neatly-rowed everyday suburban homes behind them. In Minions, even as the titular character moves domicile from those present time background to the Big Apple circa 1960’s, its relevance still stands. Likewise to its predecessors, Pierre Coffin’s version of the 1960’s in Minions is still a bag full of pop-culture references. Nonetheless, the 60’s inspired background does not take the edge off the film’s action-packed fun. From one action sequence (the Minions’ race-against-the-clock chase across England) to another coming at a frantic proportion, the coherent match-up of eye-catching characters and background compounds to such an exciting animation-watching experience.
Minions & the Overkills
Without its actors/actresses seen in their physical form, it can only make the reliance on voice in animation the more important. Even if the main character’s ability to convey their emotions is restricted to just a few grunts and groans, animation has shown numerous times that the lack of speech does not stop them from being great storytellers. In 2008, Disney-Pixar manages to bring a waste-cleaning robot in Wall-E into life with only Ben Burtt’s beeps and whistles to tell the titular character’s perspective.
Pierre Coffin, the chief voice behind those cute yellow minions, has unarguably done that on a secondary character basis in the Despicable Me series. Taking the full spotlight this time around, Pierre’s gibberish-driven speech does not take away the characters’ ability to be great storytellers. On one side, non-speaking characters like Minions can only live and breathe through body language, but their sense of humor is not complete without the random gibberish as the alternative media of expression. As for the speaking characters, we don’t have to look any further than Sandra Bullock’s lively portrayal of Scarlet Overkill. Set up as the world’s first and baddest villainess, Bullock simply steals the show from the off. She gets the manic traits of a bad guy right, mingling the charming and evil sides of the role into the foxy shape of Scarlet in mesmerizing fashion.
Sadly, Bullock’s show-stopping performance does not translate well into the supporting characters. It is not as if the others have done a sloppy performance. Veterans like Michael Keaton and Alison Janney are refreshing additions to the franchise in the characters’ suburban husband and wife dress-ups as criminals Walter and Madge Nelson respectively. Also, Jon Hamm’s departure from the sleek and handsome figure of Don Draper as Scarlet’s dim-witted husband Herb is something noteworthy. Though, we can all agree they are all rather upstaged.
Conclusion
So often, spin-offs tamper what makes the secondary character stand out in those brief moments. Minions is an exception. Its step-up from secondary character to story-driving protagonist ends with technically and spiritually one of this summer’s enjoyable outings. Save for a few “oh, I’ve seen it all before” groans towards its fish-out-of-water storyline, almost every aspects of the film falls into place.
Final Score: 8/10
Let me know what you think of Minions? Have the Minions succeed in breaking out of the comic relief shell?
suburbia666 