Minions (2015)
Certified: U
Duration: 91 minutes
Directed by: Pierre Coffin, Kyle Balda
Voicing of: Pierre Coffin, Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan, Geoffrey Rush, Jennifer Saunders, Hiroyuki Sanada
KRS Releasing Ltd

The successful Despicable Me movies (2010, 2013) have led to a huge demand for the lovable yellow and crazy Minions. A spin-off movie was the obvious choice just like what happened in the case of the penguins of the Madagascar franchise. However, Minions is not just a cash-in effort.

This is a truly insane, colourful and amped-up crazy trip that highlights and rides on the madness factor audiences like about these sidekicks. The film is designed to be a prequel to the Despicable Me franchise as it chronicles the history of the yellow Minions in their years up till the year 42BG – the BG standing for Before Gru, the super villain from the Despicable Me movies.

The lovable minions, namely Kevin, Stuart, Bob and the Minion Tribe (all voiced by Pierre Coffin) provide their untimely assistance to one bad guy after another – from T. Rex to Napoleon to Dracula. The result is always the same: they end up unemployed.

After a boring period of exile in Antarctica, Kevin, Stuart and Bob take on a mission to find a new evil boss. This is the 1960s and they head off for the Villain Con in Orlando. There they meet the superstar of all villains, the mucho evil Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock).

The plan is for the banana-coloured organisms to steal Queen Elizabeth II’s crown but, as usual,they end up making a shambles, which also leads to Scarlet Overkill going on a rampage.

Minions is a hoot for its target audience with its bright and enticing colours and its continuous slapstick comedy. Young ones will enjoy the craziness, the one-and-a-half hour of nonsense talk and, especially, how every goofball action is carried out.

Another factor that helps the film is Bullock’s vocal performance as Scarlet Overkill. She brings into the movie a delightfully bad villain that is much more than Cruella de Vil.

The film also delivers nicely in other vocal additions with quite an all-star cast. Michael Keaton is very much into it, while Jennifer Saunders makes for prim and proper Queen Elizabeth II.

However, it’s Coffin who excels in the vocals department, with his insane and gibberish way of talking and yet be understood in some way or another. It’s like watching and hearing a Looney Tunes cartoon with all characters meshed into one. He manages to make the three Minions distinct from each other even though the differences between them are minimal.

Amid all the chaos and anarchy, the film still keeps a sort of wide-eyed innocent playful attitude to it, making it more than just a gimmick or a sidekick to a franchise. The plot is skit-like in its set-up and only in the final third part of the movie does a real plot seem to come together.

The set pieces in question work insanely but somehow or other it all feels strangely cohesive.

The producers have managed to somersault over the risk of placing these secondary characters in their own franchise. However, they manage to carry a movie, showing they are minions with a capital M.