“Minions & Monsters” An Imaginative, Solid Family Flick With Plenty of Minion Fun

It really doesn’t seem like the “Despicable Me”/”Minions” franchise has been entertaining everyone young and old for sixteen years. After introducing us to the Minions in the first couple “Despicable Me” movies, everyone’s favorite scene-stealing Minions got their own entertaining spin-off series. So, let’s see what they are up to in their latest adventure - “Minions and Monsters.”

This is the rambunctious, fun story of how the Minions conquered Hollywood, became movie stars, lost everything, unleashed monsters onto the world, and then banded together to try and save the planet from the mayhem they had just created.

We are now onto the third installment of the “Minions” spin-off series and the seventh overall entry of the series. The first two movies brought us the typical sparstick fun that the Minions always bring us and the third movie brings us more of that slapstick fun and so much more!

“Minions & Monsters” delivers a great humorous blend of slapstick humor for children and surprisingly sophisticated references to early 1920s Hollywood. The new Minions adventure also is a creative, wildly imaginative homage to filmmaking and classic cinema, alongside a bunch of stand out new characters.

Film buffs and parents will easily love the abundant Easter eggs and direct parodies of both silent films and cinematic classics, including nods to “Citizen Kane,” “Metropolis,” “Singin’ in the Rain” and even “Jaws.”

Since the Minions fundamentally rely on gibberish and pantomime, stepping into the silent film era feels like a perfect match. Throughout the movie, we see brilliant recreations of classic physical gangs, such as a frantic, runaway train sequence heavily inspired by Buster Keaton’s “The General,” a house wall collapse perfectly around a minion, mirroring Keaton’s famous stunt in “Steamboat Bill, Jr.” and a franchise dash beneath a dangling clock tower that channels Harold Lloy’d legendary stunt in “Safety First.”

Beyond the clever classic film nods (and there are plenty), families and long time fans quickly fall in love with the new protagonists James and Henry. Their creative passion for filmmaking is incredibly endearing and their bickering, creative differences, and ultimately “friends to the bitter end” loyalty gave the movie a fresh, emotional core that grounded all the usual yellow minion chaos.

Besides James and Henry, there are some new characters in “Minions & Monsters” joining in on the “Minions” fun. The scene-stealer Goomi, a mini green monster,

definitely is an audience favorite (after seeing the reactions from a showing that I attended) and his back and forth banter with the minions provided some of the movie’s biggest laughs. There’s also a futuristic alien robot, Dort, who’s a clear homage to the sci-fi classic “The Day the Earth Stood Still” that can also be entertaining.

There’s plenty of fun, memorable moments throughout the new “Minions” adventure that children and their parents will really like, such as the movie museum scene that’s packed with lots of Easter eggs (including a legendary filmmaker himself) and the huge blob monster that tries to devour Hollywood.

My absolute favorite scene in the movie that’s incredibly hilarious is when the industry shifts from the silent era to the dawn of sound. After becoming massive silent movie stars, James and Henry are forced to perform their first “talkie” and as soon as everyone hears the usual Minion babble, it’s just an absolute riot (especially when they try to read a dramatic script).

“Minions & Monsters” serves as both a charming, creative love letter to Hollywood packed with plenty of Easter eggs, and is also the usual, familiar Minions mayhem. While it may no hit the exact same narrative heights as some of the other movies in the overall franchise, the movie is still a solid, feel-good family outing.

Cast: Pierre Coffin (The Minions); Allison Janney (Olivia); Christoph Waltz (Max); Jeff Bridges (Frank and Elwood); Jesse Eisenberg (Dort; Trey Parker (Goomi); Zoey Deutsch (Debbie); Bobby Moynihan (Phillips).

Writer/director: Pierre Coffin (writer; director); Brian Lynch (writer) (Minions: The Rise of Gru; The Secret Life of Pets 1 and 2); Patrick Delage (co-director) (Despicable Me 4)

MPA: Rated PG for violence/action, language and rude-macabre humor   (runtime 90 minutes)

Make sure to keep on checking my Wyoming County Press Examiner reviews page on Facebook to see any updates on the latest review slates that I am currently in the middle of planning and to see what I will be checking out for the upcoming Dietrich Theater Summer Film Festival!! 

• George Lucas' first cameo in a film since Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005).

• Many of the Minions are presumably named after famous Hollywood directors, including Quentin and Steven.

• "Goomi" is a nod to François "Goomi" Launet, the creator of the Lovecraftian parody web comic Unspeakable Vault.

• Trey Parker's voice-pitched role as Goomi is presumably a nod to his many voice-altered roles in South Park, though Parker has explicitly stated in interviews that he wanted to do a voice that was different from anything he had done in South Park.

• Dort is a reference to Gort from the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still