It’s incredibly unusual for a film to be entirely faultless and while Minions doesn’t quite pull this off itself, it does come very close to it within the realms of animated comedies. It’s a continuous stream of hilarity that keeps you laughing from the evolutionary first steps of the little yellow villainy-adoring scamps to the lead up to their modern day employment with Gru.
It’s essentially the origin story prequel to Despicable Me as we get a rapid fire potted history of the Minions as they bounce from one master to another through the ages, until they eventually find themselves in isolation in the North Pole following a fall out with Napoleon Bonaparte. Following years of dispondent confinement in the Arctic a lone Minion by the name of Kevin sets out to find himself and his little Gallic-Hispanic compadres a new master, recruiting little numpty Bob and guitar playing maniac Stuart for the quest of a lifetime.
It makes for a solid premise for the film and the Minions have got more than enough individual character to make them interesting and loveable enough to root for, despite their penchant for the more didpicable side of life. The setting in 1960s Florida and London is a master stroke with the swinging parody potential creating a lot of hilarity, especially the inclusion of the young Queen Elizabeth into the madcap story.
Things get up to speed when the jaundiced, lozenge-shaped trio track down their latest target for master material, Scarlet Overkill, played with mercilous ambition by Sandra Bullock (Gravity). Once they finally win her over, they’re recruited as her henchmen and so starts the villainy with a plot to steel the British Crown Jewels, helping Scarlet to fulfill her lifelong ambition of becoming queen herself.
As you’d expect with the Minions, nothing quite goes to plan as they bumble their way through life, causing one catastrophe after another, but it’s a lot of fun seeing it all fall apart, one lava lamp gun shot at a time. It’s all very heart warming and endearing in the process, especially Bob’s demonstration of his nefarious powers at Villain Con, so it should make you fall in love with the Minions all over again.
Pierre Coffin puts in a sterling shift as the three unlikely heroes, with some of the funniest Minions lines to-date, including our favourite, “ah hah hah, papa gayna, tu le belle con la papaya”. He’s taken the possibilities of the characters, which are ordinarily less prominent in the Despicable Me films, and pushed the dial as far as he can to deliver a whole lot of comic genius in the process.
A few of the big names are a little lost within the grand scheme of the animated comedy, including Steve Coogan (Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb) as Professor Flux and Michael Keaton (Birdman) as Walter Nelson, a baddy loving father who gives the Minions a lift to Villain Con. However, Jennifer Saunders does a very good job at playing Queen Elizabeth II, sounding every bit the perfect comic send up of the head of the British monarchy.
The animation itself is pretty impressive too, giving you more than enough visual treats to take in, if you can tare yourself away from the fun of the film for long enough to notice. It’s definitely a movie that could go on to get a fair few plays as a go-to family movie and when you do watch it again you’ll probably spot the cool effects and animation that has gone into the film a little more.
The Minions DVD is a laugh from start to finish and if the middling reviews from other sites have put you off, you should probably ignore them and watch it anyway, because it’s bound to put a smile on your face. It may not break the mold as such, but it does warp it a little into a few new weird, banana-like shapes.
Minions DVD review: 4/5
