All Aboard the Minions Express!

Rating: 8/10 (25 July 2013)

Without a doubt, this is one crazy, clever, and outrageous bullet train of an animated movie that does its energetic best to wring out the laughs (and mostly succeeds). Part of "Despicable Me 2's" (hereafter DM2) success are its inspired plot borrowings such as "The Incredibles", the Bond movie series, "Lilo and Stitch" and even "Cars 2" to embroil everyone's favorite Uncle Fester/Dr. Evil hybrid ex-supervillain Gru (Steve Carell) in a world dominance plot using cute beasties turned into purple, fanged wrecking balls.
Another part of its success is the gradual revelation of Gru's more positive qualities such as his growing, more tolerant, and sometimes excessive compassion towards his adoptive children Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), the eldest and a budding teenager, tomboyish middle child Edith (Dana Gaier), and button-cute unicorn fanatic Agnes (Elsie Fisher), the youngest. We also must not forget the winning, ebullient return of resourceful Anti-Villain League agent Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig, using her Lola Bunny voice from "The Looney Tunes Show") who recruits the somewhat reluctant Gru to go uncover with her at a mall bakery to uncover which of the mall proprietors is behind the purple mutant plot. The flabby but suave and mysterious Eduardo Perez/El Macho (Benjamin Bratt), the mall Mexican restaurant owner with an alluring son (Moisés Arias) involved with Margo, also keeps the proceedings hopping. All of the aforementioned stuff, in my opinion, works as smart, coherent entertainment.
But what powers and keeps this bullet train together is one of the most insidiously and surprisingly endearing creations of any movie - the little old Minions. These slyly captivating characters prove the old adage that introducing lots of cute, fun, silly, little people in a movie is a surefire, lucrative way to lure people to an animated film. Characters such as the Smurfs, Pokemon, and the 627 experiments from "Lilo and Stitch" have certainly proved that. They can easily capture young children's interest.
But unlike the Smurfs, etc., Minions have crossover appeal to parents as well. Sure they babble childishly and otherwise act like overstimulated, quarrelsome brats. But the Minions are also industrious, satirical and hip assistants with some adult sensibilities, always eager to help Gru with his radically new espionage job, parenting, and love life predicaments. These Twinkie-shaped, blue over-all wearing dynamos keep DM2's pace from ever flagging.
This is not to say that the Minions completely detract from the main storyline. I think we want to see Gru surmount childhood disappointments, his uncertainties and his sinister past to be a good do-gooder, better parent, and perhaps a suitable match for Lucy. But DM2 wouldn't be quite the same without the Minions serving as Greek chorus, comedy relief, and (mostly) trustworthy Gru sidekicks AND foster children. No wonder Illumination Entertainment plans an exclusive feature for them. Now if they can only introduce a Minionette.