The Minions finally made a movie! (CREDIT: Illumination & Universal Pictures)

Starring: Pierre Coffin, Trey Parker, Allison Janney, Christoph Waltz, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeff Bridges, Zoey Deutch, Bobby Moynihan, Phil LaMarr, George Lucas

Director: Pierre Coffin

Running Time: 90 Minutes

Rating: PG for Incorrigibly Rude Humor and Unbound Comic Mayhem

Release Date: July 1, 2026 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: You might think you know everything about the Minions, but you know NOTHING! Well, not nothing. Just not quite everything. You see, those blabbering yellow pills (voiced as usual by Pierre Coffin) who are most famous for serving the evil mastermind Gru have actually consisted of multiple tribes over the centuries. And as Minions & Monsters reveals, one of those tribes played a major part in the early days of Hollywood cinema. That’s because one Minion named James is quite the visionary, and his Minion buddies Henry and the hard-of-hearing Ed are eager to collaborate with him to produce a monster movie opus. Fortunately, a veteran director named Max (Christoph Waltz) truly believes in them. Less fortunately, though, the film studio head brothers (both voiced by Jeff Bridges) are only intermittently supportive. So James, Henry, and Ed journey off on their own to summon actual monstrous beasts with the help of a miniature Cthulhu-type named Goomi (Trey Parker). That’s sure to guarantee some fabulous footage, but it could also result in a full-blown apocalypse.

What Made an Impression?: Cinema Paradise: M&Ms is hardly the first kid-friendly animated movie to feature references to the earliest days of cinema, but when the Minions are involved, those references skyrocket to another level. Saying “Bello” to the likes of  Méliès, Casablanca, and the Lumière brothers guarantees that the culture clash combination is just as bizarrely perfect as chocolate, peanut butter, and bananas. And then there’s the Minion version of an iconic scene from Citizen Kane, which is positively transcendent in its potty-mouthed simplicity.
Pushing the Limits: Speaking of potty mouths, Minions & Monsters really pushes the limits of the PG rating in a way that I suspect and hope the rascally youths in the audience will fully appreciate. The comic mayhem features plenty of typical physical gags: the eye pokes, the clubs to the head, the vaporizations. But then they take it a step further with a beheading! And one film noir homage lets slip a bit of profanity that I previously thought was reserved for PG-13 or higher. I gasped, only to be immediately comforted by just how playful this envelope-pushing was.
Supporting Report: So, the Minions are of course as delightful as ever, but what about everyone else in this extravaganza? Well, the aforementioned Bridges and Waltz provide solid color to the 1920s setting, while Parker certainly goes for it as a dinky-voiced beastie. But the top non-Minion highlight for me would have to be an adorably strange subplot with Jesse Eisenberg as a robot and Zoey Deutch as an activist that answers a question we never knew we needed to have the answer to, i.e., what if The Day the Earth Stood Still were about the fight for women’s suffrage? We could use that same sort of energy when conquering similar real-world struggles.

Minions & Monsters is Recommended If You Like: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, A Trip to the Moon, The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station, Bananas

Grade: 4.5 out of 5 Kaiju