Minions felt necessary for me to watch because it’s become so much of a thing. I had intended on loving it so I could contradict the mob of people who have it out for the franchise.
But by god, it’s a bad movie. Really, truly not good. All of the things that make a children’s movie great are missing. It had weak humour, unsympathetic, poopy characters, and the plot was garbage.
The movie follows the evolutionary background of a species referred to as minions. They evolved under any villainous or powerful species they could find. Unfortunately for them, they’re stupid and incompetent so they manage to kill every villain they latch on to.
The last villain they kill looks to be Napoleon Bonaparte. When they kill him in some ramshackle way, the French army drive them into hiding. At first they flourish and are content to be stupid together, but eventually they delve into a communal state of depression because they don’t have a villain to lead them.
Sensing this malaise, a minion by the named Kevin embarks on an adventure with two other minions, Bob and Stuart, to find a new villain to control them.
Kevin is the lead minion. He is the least stupid, I suppose, but there is no character development to aid me in giving a fuck.
That said, how is one supposed to develop the character of someone who is supposed to be, at its very core, the same as every other god damned minion? These aren’t leading guys. The penguins from the Madagascar movie had personality and character, so their spinoff didn’t make me rage. What makes Bob any different from the thousand other Bobs?
That yellow turd has a teddy bear, that’s what. Kids like dumb music, so they strapped a guitar on to Stuart’s back to give him the appearance of a musical turd. That way he could inexplicably go into song and dance and they could sell the song on iTunes for $1.99 a pop.
At the end of the day, the silliness was the biggest issue. This was fully for children. Kids like dumb, nonsensical things. Minions are dumb, nonsensical things.
I think we can all agree that these silly bastards were endearing in Despicable Me, but an entire movie can’t be centred around the bumbling efforts of three dumbasses who cater to childlike humour.
I feel just as stupid as Kevin, Stuart, or Bob while I write this review because I’m criticizing a movie made without my demographic in mind as if it were written for me. I’m like a dude in my basement philosophizing about the Marxist undertones of My Little Pony.
I don’t even have a kid. I didn’t have to be anywhere near that movie theatre. I could’ve watched literally anything other than Pixels or Fantastic Four and have been content.
So there are two things to take out of this. One, if you have a child and need to watch Minions, buckle yourself in and hold absolutely no expectations other than disappointment. Two, if you don’t have a child, save yourself you can’t love it, even ironically. It’s just bad.
