‘Minions & Monsters’ is an Ode to Joys of Cinema

June 30, 2026

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

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

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Despicable Me 3’ Plays to Its Strength Just Often Enough

June 30, 2017

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

CREDIT: Universal and Illumination

This review was originally posted on News Cult in June 2017.

Starring: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Trey Parker, Pierre Coffin, Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, Nev Scharrel

Directors: Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda

Running Time: 90 Minutes

Rating: PG for Off-Color Minionese Jokes

Release Date: June 30, 2017

“I miss the Minions,” Gru laments about halfway through Despicable Me 3. Ever since the 2010 release of the first in this series, missing the Minions could only ever be relative. But when those little yellow pills are not on screen, you feel it. They may be divisive, inspiring just as much ire as they do unbridled joy, but there is good reason why they have been the breakout characters. As much as they inspire little kids (and some adults) to babble incessantly in Minionese, they are not lacking in ingenuity. Indeed, their moments in the spotlight continue to be the most imaginative, inventive, and playful in the DM-verse. When in DM3 they stumble into a live singing competition and are forced to come up on the spot with a signature babbling version of the Gilbert and Sullivan classic “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General,” their versatile ability to think on their feet is as inspiring as ever.

Alas, this buoyancy is not present throughout, as directors Pierre Coffin (also the voice of most of the Minions) and Kyle Balda and writers Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio commit the cardinal sequel sin of splitting up their characters into dispersed storylines. Gru (Steve Carell, having a ball as always), Lucy (Kristen Wiig), and the girls all head out to the European mash-up/Marx Brothers reference country of Freedonia to meet Gru’s long-lost twin brother Dru (Carell pulling double duty), but everyone has their own thing going on. The much more outwardly charming Dru tries to pull Gru back into a life of villainy to fulfill a family legacy, while Lucy is more focused on getting the girls (who have their own subplots that have essentially nothing to do with anything else) to really truly think of her as a mom.

The Minions’ storyline succeeds the most by following an instinct of loyalty and getting everyone back together. Dru is not the only one trying to drag Gru back to a life of crime, as his little yellow assistants commence an insurrection that results in a mass resignation. They ultimately wind up imprisoned (if you love the Minions, you will love seeing them become the ruling jailhouse gang), where they see the error of their ways and craft an impromptu aircraft out of prison toilets and washing machines. There’s that ol’ Minion ingenuity, implemented for the purpose of absurd goodness.

This is a busy movie, leaving little room for its ostensible villain to make much of an impression. This series has never really needed strong antagonists, as its most interesting conflicts have been more internal. But with the heroes all now mostly on the side of good, it would help if diamond thief Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker) were more of a complementary counterpoint. Instead, he is just a bizarre presence sticking out like a sore thumb, with his defining characteristic being his fetishization of the ’80s.

There is a weird tension at the heart of Despicable Me 3. So much happens, but so much is left teased. The ending suggests that this has been one 90 minute-long trailer for the next real Dru-centric adventure. But really, the problem here is that there is not a strong enough capitalization on this series’ enduring sweetness. The girls are adorable, they love Gru, Gru’s a great dad, Lucy never needed to try so hard to be accepted, and the Minions are so, so loyal. Everyone is on the same side, thus why it is such a shame that they are not all in the same scenes as often as possible.

Despicable Me 3 is Recommended If You Like: Cramming as Many Plotlines as Possible Into 90 Minutes

Grade: 3 out of 5 Minions Blowing Raspberries