[Voice] Cast: As expected, there's a lot of Pierre Coffin doing the minion voices. Sandra Bullock is the next most prominent person with Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, and Steve Coogan there too.
Plot: The minions have been around a very long time and they exist solely to find a boss. This didn't work out for a few hundred thousand years, so they put themselves in exile. Around 1968, they are nearly perishing from listlessness, so three of them, Kevin (Coffin), Stuart (Coffin), and Bob (Coffin) head out to find a new boss. After a brief stay in New York City, they stumble on the aptly-named Villain Con in a pre-Disney World (See "Desolate") Orlando. There, they find a prime candidate to be their new boss, a super villain named Scarlett Overkill (Bullock). She takes them back to England where they meet her genius husband, Herb (Hamm). Scarlett then tasks them with stealing the Queen of England's crown before she agrees to keep them around full time.
Thoughts:
This reminded me a lot of the Penguins of Madagascar movie. That too was a movie that I didn't hate, but I also thought was stretched too thin and limped to the end. I get the reasoning. People love the minions. I don't remember the last time side characters broke out from a movie to this level. There's a lot of humor to be mined from them and it's not like Illumination is worried about trying to play down to their audience.
On the surface, Minions is everything it's supposed to be. It's lively. There a lot of funny moments (some jokes, some slapstick, some visual gags). Unfortunately all the best moments have been used in the previews. The surrounding voice cast is great. Bullock has a lot of fun and I was surprised that I didn't recognize Hamm at all. The three main minions are distinct characters. I honestly don't recall how different they were in the Despicable Me movies, but they managed to feel like three developed characters.
The story streamlines directly into Despicable Me (it's hard to see how they do another one of these without Gru) and they need every minute of that story. Believe it or not, there's not a great deal to the minions. They were designed as side characters and that's how they function best. At times, this movie was like watching Forrest Gump if he wasn't so chatty, since the minions are mostly watching other people give speeches around them. The internal logic of the story is sound enough (by that, I mean prone to anarchy and absurdity). I got bored pretty quickly though. Even just 91 minutes felt too long
Elephant in the Room: I hate the minions. This is nothing new. Let's see. I've referenced it here, here, and here at the top of my head. It's rather remarkable that I even bothered to see this in theaters given my minion-fatigue and that the theater was a lock to be populated by loud, unruly children (I'll say this. The children could've been much worse). So, anything I say about this movie needs this section as a disclaimer. I find them more annoying than just about any characters in cinema right now. I tried so hard to get over it for this viewing experience and I couldn't.
To Sum Things Up (in 57 words or less):
For fans of the minions and/or Despicable Me movies, I'm sure there's plenty to enjoy. There weren't enough laughs to justify all the wasted plot in it for me though. They brought in the right supplemental voice actors to level my opinion of it, especially Sandra Bullock. Still, a mediocre effort.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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