By John Corrado
The appeal of the Minions, those little pill-shaped yellow guys who speak gibberish and made their debut in 2010’s Despicable Me, is that they provide classic cartoon humour. As such, their giggle-inducing antics can be enjoyed across all languages, cultures and age groups, not unlike silent movies themselves.
It’s fitting, then, that Minions & Monsters, the seventh instalment in Illumination’s hugely profitable animated franchise, serves as a loving homage to classic cinema itself.
Directed by series co-creator Pierre Coffin (who also voices all of the Minions in their made-up “Minionese” language), Minions & Monsters serves as a surprisingly sincere tribute to Old Hollywood and the magic of making movies that packs in a number of cinematic references, all woven seamlessly into something that also functions as another delightfully madcap Minions movie.
Serving as both a prequel to and spinoff from the previous Despicable Me and Minions movies, this story takes place primarily during Hollywood’s Golden Age. Coffin turns his Minions into accidental movie stars and aspiring filmmakers trying to navigate the move from the silent era to the rise of the talkies by, well, summoning monsters.
Our main Minion this time is James, a misfit who loves drawing and storytelling, and is perhaps named in reference to Frankenstein director James Whale. While the rest of the pack are trying to find the most evil leader to follow, he is focused on making art. The other Minions don’t understand James, or his close bond with fellow mischief maker Henry, which gets them ostracized from the group. They are joined by fellow outsider Ed, who is hard of hearing and communicates through Minionese sign language (a nice touch for inclusion).
The film follows these Minions as they land in Hollywood and inadvertently become movie stars. We get a wonderful comic sequence that plays like a train robbery straight out of an Old Western, while weaving in a number of sight gags that double as elaborate cinematic references to those silent film stars Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.
The references don’t stop there, with Coffin later paying delightful tribute to cinematic touchstones like Casablanca and Citizen Kane, which will hopefully lead to some kids in the audience discovering these classics for the first time. There are a lot of elements at play here, and Coffin keeps the film moving at a quick clip, including blink and you’ll miss ‘em sight gags in nearly every scene.
James is gifted a camera by their mentor, German filmmaker Max (Christoph Waltz), and dreams of making his own monster movie and winning an Oscar (which, in his imagination, is a gold banana-shaped trophy). Enter a spell book that allows them to summon a squishy little green guy named Goomi (voiced by South Park’s Trey Parker, offering some fun line readings). And plenty of cartoon chaos ensues.
The film is colourful and fast-paced, delivering a steady stream of visual gags and slapstick humour (a bit involving the Minions punching each other instead of using their words is pretty funny). In true anything-goes Minion fashion, we also get random story threads, such as a subplot involving an alien robot named Dort (Jesse Eisenberg) as well as a suffragette named Debbie (Zoey Deutch), positioning the Minions as part of the movement to give women the vote. Who knew?
This is also Coffin’s most personal film, in many ways having him grapple with his creation. The “Gentleminions” TikTok trend that sprang up around 2022’s Minions: The Rise of Gru already proved the pop cultural sway that these characters have with a generation of kids who grew up with them. But Minions & Monsters delivers a nice bit of historical revisionism as well that allows the Minions to fully ascend from amusing sidekicks into culturally recognized figures, and deservedly so; they have now comfortably taken their place alongside classic cartoon characters.
Most importantly, Minions & Monsters serves as a love letter to the movies themselves, and the magic of making them. Which is pretty special for a Minions movie, and it’s nice to think that there are kids out there who will be inspired to become filmmakers because of it. That’s the power of the movies, and also, we must admit, the Minions themselves.
The Joy of Movies 