In the 1920s, one tribe of Minions finds themselves in Hollywood, where they look for monsters to cast in their very own monster movie.
Empires fall. Glaciers melt and oceans rise. Monarchs and prime ministers are crowned and toppled. But the Minions cannot be halted, will never cease, will outlive us all. These are the immutable facts of our universe. So it goes with Minions & Monsters, the seventh film of the ever-expanding Cinematic Gruniverse, which suggests that the global domination of everyone’s favourite beady-eyed, gibberish-yapping weirdos remains firm and true.
This latest Minions-only adventure (after the underwhelmingly Gru-some Despicable Me 4 from 2024) sees one particular tribe of the diminutive yellow fellas set sail on the ocean, like the Polynesian explorers of old, in search of a new boss. As with previous adventures, this halfling species remains forever desperate for a villainous master to serve, which sees them encounter everyone from the tyrants of revolutionary France to a fearsome cyclops (in what may be the only similarity that Minions & Monsters has to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey). Eventually, the ageless goofballs land in 1920s America, where they stumble upon the filming of a Western movie — and inadvertently become the toast of Hollywood.
With previous protagonist Bob elsewhere, our heroes for this particular yarn are two starry-eyed Minions named James and Henry (as ever, all Minion voices are provided by co-director Pierre). While other members of the gang simply want to serve evil, these two yearn for a chance to tell their tall tales to a wider audience, and with them comes a surprisingly earnest ode to the art of storytelling, baked in amongst all the usual slapstick and nonsense talk.
This is, improbably, the Minions version of a love letter to movies. The affectionate references to classics, from Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times to Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last, will go over the heads of the young target audience, as will the historic voice cameo from George Lucas, somehow coaxed out of retirement for a very funny small role. But for cine-literate parents in the room, there are some absurdist treats: it may boast the first Citizen Kane-based fart joke in cinema history.
The overall tone remains as juvenile as ever. It is goofy and giggly and resolutely wedded to stupidity. There’s little attempt to add much depth to the story, in the way that Pixar might try to — it is essentially, once again, just a series of contrived opportunities for the little guys to get up to chaotic mischief. And so it goes. The world keeps on turning.
More of the same from this franchise, really. It will keep the Minion-sized people in your life happy and probably make a bazillion dollars. Bananas all round!