The many movies of the yellow, gibberish-spewing creatures from Despicable Me have served up cute vignettes of cartoon silliness, but rarely kept pace as a feature film. This has been a problem with all of the animated movies from Illumination, which are produced more as a quilt of cartoon ideas that don’t fully connect or hold together as a story. But with Minions & Monsters, the third in the Minions saga and seventh in the overall Despicable Me franchise, I’m delighted to report that this is the one to win me over. The story is nothing spectacular, but it holds together well enough that I can sit back and appreciate the buffet of gags that garner more smirks than laughs.

What made this film work better than the others was its simpler goals and narrower focus on characters. Turning back the clock further in the timeline, the minions hunt for their next villain overlord in 1920s Hollywood. Less concerned with this mission is the minion James, more content to draw and create stories than serve evil. His divergence is only accepted by two other minions: his biggest fan, Henry, and the deaf and resourceful Ed. When they arrive in Hollywood, James believes he has found his calling. Making me movies sounds like a dream, and that artistic passion is further enhanced by an ambitious director, Max (Christoph Waltz). He makes the minions the stars of his many movies, but they’re not all on board with this lifestyle. Specifically, the scrutinizing Dick thinks his tribe is losing focus on finding a villain, splintering off from the more artistic.

Unlike past Minions movies, which felt like a mash-up of generic ingredients from the 1960s and 1970s, Minions & Monsters offers plenty of clever gags in its Hollywood setting. The arrival of the minions in California is met with a host of homages to Modern Times and Steamboat Bill, Jr. It’s easy to see how the minions would be natural stars for silent movies, given how easily they take to slapstick. It was fun to see them rise in the ranks of stardom and see them tumble with the advent of sound, where their gibberish won’t cut it for audiences who want dialogue they can understand. Through all the hills and valleys, James keeps working towards his dream of making his own movie. I found myself caring about this plucky outsider trying to express himself and stage a monster movie, despite the scrutiny of the studio owners Frank and Elwood Bright, an obvious parody of Warner Bros. but also a less obvious dual role for Jeff Bridges, living up to Illumination’s strongest trait of casting unlikely voice actors that melt into their roles.

The film starts to lose some of its luster when it falls back on its fantasy and sci-fi elements to live up to its title. James’s attempt to make a more authentic monster movie leads him to summon Goomi, a Cthulhu-esque monster that proves underwhelming for his stature. Fitting that squat nature is the voice provided by Trey Parker, which just can’t escape that South Park cadence no matter how altered his voice was in post. There isn’t much to this character, considering his deception of bringing more monsters into our realm is obvious and simplistic, especially with such bland monsters thrown into the mix that are voiced by Bobby Moynihan and Phil LaMarr. Don’t expect much monster movie tribute when these messes of teeth, tentacles, and eyeballs slither onto the scene. I did, however, enjoy some of the B story with the minions following Dort (Jesse Eisenberg), a ridiculous robot intent on invading Earth but also smitten with a suffragette played by Zoey Deutch. The character becomes far more compelling beyond his image resembling Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still and his demeanor resembling that of a sci-fi convention cosplayer.

Minions & Monsters succeeds in being more of an inspiration for art rather than exploiting it for a handful of cute and stupid slapstick scenes. The love letter to Hollywood comes off more genuine, not just because Universal will reference their classic movies and pluck George Lucas for a cute gag of making him a museum exhibit. There are some wonderful nods to classic cinema that I hope young people will seek out, even if they’re dismayed by the lack of minions cavorting around Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Years ago, Universal made a forgettable sci-fi dystopian movie called Mortal Engines, which featured a brief gag in which a Minion statue was mistaken for an artifact of the old world and misconstrued as an idol. Minions & Monsters essentially lifts that same idea as a framing device and sells it well, making a movie that taps into the passion for filmmaking while still embracing the franchise’s hallmarks of cartoon silliness. And as somebody who has endured these cute yet narratively adrift movies for many years, it was refreshing that this entry felt like it was saying something more intelligible beyond minion gibberish.

Not available on any streaming platforms.

Source: