Minions Review
RYAN: This is the new prequel to the Despicable Me franchise and it’s very cute. It’s just what you’d expect from these little guys. It’s a bit more juvenile. Seeing it so close to Inside Out, which was so brilliant and profound, this movie seems much less-than. But it’s great and cute.
LEAH: I have not seen Inside Out, however, I have heard an interview with the director on NPR and I could already tell that the plot was definitely not as profound as that in Inside Out. But I will say that the detail in the animation here, the CGI was extremely detailed.
RYAN: In both Despicable Me movies, the minions were always such scene stealers that you wanted more of them. You yearned for Universal Pictures to break them out on their own and do a movie like this. So in theory this Minions stand-alone film was a really good idea. But it’s not as good as the Despicable Me movies because of the dialogue, or lack thereof. While you can follow everything that’s going on, those long stretches where you’re not getting actual language gets kind of boring. So there were moments where it kind of dragged, although it’s only 90 minutes long.
LEAH: I would strongly agree. I’m so curious now to download the script to see how it’s written out. But I would definitely agree that anything more than two lines of dialogue from each character in their own little Minion language, beyond that is just too much.
RYAN: It is clever, however, that every 500 words or so, they throw in an actual word from some other language. We picked up on some Spanish and French and Hebrew and Italian and…
LEAH: Japanese, I did hear Japanese. He said the word “sayonara.” “Sayonara poochie!”
RYAN: So all of those words. I think it’s clever and cool that they incorporated that, it’s kind of fun because somewhere something flares in your brain whenever a word in any language comes through. They are very cute and the story is fun.
LEAH: I have not seen the other two Despicable Me films, this is a prequel, but it is not clear to me – Why is it that they want to follow an evil leader?
RYAN: And I was under the impression from Despicable Me” that we saw the blueprints that Gru had, Steve Carrell’s character, in creating the minions. He might have at one point created them which would work against the continuity of this film where they seemed to have evolved. I loved that at the very beginning they show some iconic villians that they try to follow. That’s really fun. I’d say that first half-hour is one of the best parts of the movie.
LEAH: I loved that as well. But I also loved the fact that it’s a period film and it’s a children’s film. The jokes were cute, there was some adult humor. The music, of course, is great.
RYAN: Right, you said that they had to have a good music budget and obviously they have a huge budget. The soundtrack is really great. The 3D is also very good. But a lot of it looks very real, the backgrounds of it.
LEAH: I will say this and I don’t know what the casting process was for this but to me, Sandra Bullock does not sound very evil to me.
RYAN: But that’s fine – it’s for kiddies.
LEAH: It’s ok.
RYAN: It’s Minions! She didn’t have to be Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs and give people nightmares.
LEAH: (laughs)
RYAN: It’s fun. It’s very good and if you have kids to take to enjoy it, you will be entertained as well.
