Turns out those little yellow banana guys really love cinema.
“Minions & Monsters” — the third stand-alone “Minions” movie, which is one less than the number of “Despicable Me” movies, the series from which they were spun — is a loving, honest-to-goodness tribute to movie history, packed with references and callbacks to the greats of the medium. It’s the first “Minions” offering that could legitimately find a home, and an audience, on Turner Classic Movies.
Cinéastes will have a field day checking off the list of film references compiled here, from Georges Méliès to Charlie Chaplin to Buster Keaton to Harold Lloyd to Orson Welles. George Lucas makes a cameo as his animated self, movies from “E.T.” to “The Matrix” are name-checked, and there’s even a nod to Brad Pitt’s character in “True Romance.” Two decades from now, a youngster is going to make a movie that blows everyone away and he’ll say he learned about film history from “Minions & Monsters.”
It’s also an expectedly chaotic “Minions” adventure, full of irreverent humor and amusing slapstick gags. Its obsession with cinema doesn’t supersede the fact that it’s a story of tiny yellow troublemakers running amok. Come for the pandemonium, stay for the love letter to Old Hollywood.
This “Minions” — it’s the follow-up, in chronology only, to 2024’s “Despicable Me 4” — takes place in the 1920s, at the dawn of cinema. It centers on two misfit Minions, James and Henry, and their friendship over time. (The Minions are voiced by director and co-writer Pierre Coffin, who speaks in a mishmash of languages lovingly referred to as Minionese.)
Across time and continents, the Minions are looking for a new evil leader to whom to attach themselves, and their mishaps bring them to Hollywood, where they unknowingly crash the set of the latest film by film auteur Max (Christoph Waltz). Max thinks the Minions have ruined his film but his bosses, Frank and Elwood Bright (both voiced by Jeff Bridges), think the Minions are a smash and order them to be stars, and thus begins their crash course through movie history.
The Minions team up with a robot, Dort (Jesse Eisenberg), and conjure up an alien being named Goomi (Trey Parker) who is bent on taking over the world. Eventually a giant blob the size of a Hollywood backlot threatens the town and it’s up to the Minions to, in their own way, save the day. Never fear, evil is no match for teamwork and friendship.
“Minions & Monsters” is spirited fun, romping its way through the annals of cinema history and wrapping itself up before overstaying its welcome. That it manages to be a literate tribute to the movies is a bonus; while you might not pick up exactly what the Minions are saying, the language it speaks is universal.
Rated PG for violence/action, language and rude/macabre humor.
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