We are now 7 films and billions of dollars in, and guess what – Minions & Monsters is the best Minions movie yet! There… have your logline, but in reality, while I was pleased to tolerate this film more than the other entries in either the Despicable Me or Minions franchise, there’s still a thick layer of stuff in these films that rubs me the wrong way. Clearly, they work from many, and that’s great. It’s not as though I feel there’s a lack of effort to deliver these movies. It just continues to feel like a subpar version of classic Merry Melodies cartoons, which is a fitting way to segue into why Minions & Monsters more-or-less delivers a slightly stronger result. Those old cartoons I mentioned came about during the Golden Age of animation, and this film is largely devoted to Old Hollywood and the bridge to the Golden Age once sound film arrived. If anything, part of the joy of this film is that parents can put it on for the kids while they watch the adult equivalent, Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, in the other room.
A quick setup, featuring our narrator, voiced by Allison Janney, reveals that two Minions were once responsible for huge films from the past and for saving Hollywood itself. We are then taken back to a montage once again showing us some of the various villains that a particular tribe of Minions would attempt to serve, only to have it screwed up by the artistic James (voiced by director Pierre Coffin, who voices all the Minions). Eventually, this Minions tribe stumbles its way into Hollywood, where they soon find a variety of new candidates to serve, while also becoming silent film stars. Once sound comes into play and the Minions are fired, James decides he wants to make his own movie, leading to the unearthing of some new nefarious characters.
Describing half the movie to get the main setup across is necessary because, much like the other Minions movies, Minions & Monsters is heavy on antics. It’s not quite a sketch show, but there are so many gag-heavy sequences that are separate from everything else going on that the plot takes a while to really find itself. That’s not necessarily a criticism, given the general idea behind these movies. Still, it is somewhat fascinating to be three Minion movies in and not really need to take a traditional route with these productions. Sure, we have some lead characters to follow, but it’s not as though they actually develop in any way. They don’t even support human characters that have anything to learn. Instead, there’s a plot that is a means to an ends, but we’re more rooted in the comedy and the aesthetics.
Fortunately, this is a film designed to bring a smile to cinephiles like me, with the obvious but still amusing in-jokes about the period. Given that this is Illumination and not an animation studio, I generally find it more savvy at making a meal out of clever sight gags and deep-cut references; it’s not like I was expecting full-on tributes to Sunrise or The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. That said, enjoyable nods to Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd were welcome, let alone the uses of trains in major action set pieces and other conceptually fun ideas.
The other aspect of this film centers on the big monsters, which should be of interest as well, given my predilection for kaiju movies. To that I just have to say that I wish this film elicited more out of me in that regard, but trying to hard to meld the plot surrounding Old/New Hollywood with monsters summoned by magic only goes so far for a film that is more or less throwing a lot of ideas at the wall, compared to a stronger feature that has a real handle on how to do this sort of thing. However, the animation of it all at least shines. This has always been a stylized series with a heightened approach to characters and locations. Still, I can’t deny some solid detail work this time around.
An array of talent also signed on to this film. This time around, we have Christoph Waltz, Jesse Eisenberg, Zoey Deutch, Jeff Bridges, Bobby Moynihan, Phil LaMarr, and Trey Parker on hand. I can at least appreciate that they are all mostly trying to do something with their voices. Given that only some of these performers actually do this kind of work regularly, it’s nice to see a film pushing the rest to similarly push for something beyond their normal timbre.
So, saying “more of the same” wouldn’t exactly be accurate this time around, as I didn’t feel as though I had to suffer through this one as much. Now that’s a whole lot of damming with faint praise, but I did legitimately appreciate some of the gags and their proximity to Hollywood history in a way that gave it a push above the rest. Sure, this is still a Minions movie, and those inclined to enjoy it are already on board to begin with. That said, for anyone who’s sitting on the border of whether or not to engage, well, Minions & Monsters at least aspires to shine as brightly as the city lights.
Minions & Monsters opens in theaters on July 1, 2026.
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