Director: Pierre Coffin
Cast: Pierre Coffin, Trey Parker, Allison Janney, Christoph Waltz, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeff Bridges, Zoey Deutch, Bobby Moynihan, Phil LaMarr
Screenplay: Brian Lynch, Pierre Coffin
90 mins. Rated PG for violence/action, language and rude/macabre humor.

The year is 2026, and we are seven films deep in the Minions/Despicable Me franchise. There are three good or great entries, and three dull and aimless entries. With director/co-writer/star Pierre Coffin (who directed the three best entries) returning to helm Minions & Monsters, all seems right in the world, and he delivers a good prequel that could’ve been so much better.

The Minions have always been in constant search for the perfect big boss to serve, but when they arrive in 1920s Hollywoodland, one little artistic Minion, James, believes he’s found his calling, but when their silent film fame is put in danger by the introduction of sound, James takes it upon himself to make an epic piece of cinema: a monster movie. All he needs is a monster. Using an old tome from a former master, the Minions bring forth monsters that have their own intentions to perhaps unravel all life on the planet.

As I said, Minions & Monsters has a lot of good, but I was constantly feeling frustrated in how the movie skirts its best ideas. I’ve been saying since the first Minions movie that these characters are best when they embody the silent movie stars of the past, like Chaplin, Lloyd, and Keaton. There’s some of that at play in Minions & Monsters, and the references are often quite overt. When the movie is operating like a silent comedy, it’s all the better for it. So much energy and style from the film’s start would lead one to believe that the entire movie carries this energy, but a lot of the silent film plot is seemingly jettisoned early on, making space for a subplot involving most of the Minions following around a guy or perhaps robot named Dort (Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network). This subplot is rather underwhelming and that time could’ve been better used focusing on Minions and their adventures in the movie business.

We’ve talked about the Minions, but what about the Monsters? Well, there are a few here, and they are mostly fine. I liked the idea of Goomi (Trey Parker, TV’s South Park), a sort-of Baby Cthulhu, and the character works well in the movie, but I think the rest of the Monsters are a bit generic for creatures pulled out of H.P. Lovecraft. Do you like tentacles? We got one of them. Do you like eyes? We got one of them.

The voice work and characters are frequently the best part of Minions & Monsters. Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) joins the fray as film director Max who employs the Minions and aids in James’s dreams. Jeff Bridges (Iron Man) voices brothers Frank and Elwood Bright, heads of a film studio, one of them stern and the other gentle. I also liked the voice work of the various monsters. I also want to note the incredible and underappreciated work of Pierre Coffin, who voices all the Minions themselves and has done so since the franchise’s start. He’s an unsung hero giving voice to the dozens of individual Minions and, whether you like the little yellow blobs or not, that takes a lot of vocal distinction and planning, especially crafting the Minion-ese.

Minions & Monsters is a perfectly serviceable and entertaining installment of the long-running franchise. Far from the best or worst the series has to offer, the movie is winning when it places the titular Minions where they belong: in a silent movie, pratfalling and causing general chaos and bringing to mind the greats of Old Hollywood. I just wish the film had gone bigger and bolder while remaining focused to its general plot line instead of an odd subplot with a robot character that comes out of nowhere and gives way to a less-stellar finale. Still, there’s enough love for the cinema here and genuinely good heartfelt family moments to justify bringing your Minions to the theater this weekend.

3/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

For more Minions: Despicable Me 3, Despicable Me 4