A Festival of Pure Silly Joy and Nothing Else

Rating: 6/10 (25 June 2015)

"Minions", the spin-off everyone has been waiting for! Over the years, we've grown to be very fond of those yellow pesky yet lovable Minions who speak Gibberish and are very well-known for their carefree and silly antics. This time, they finally get to become the main stars of a 90-minute feature and honestly, they delivered what they were known for, their carefree and silly antics, and nothing else.
"Minions" starts out with an overview of the origin of the Minions (sort of). It explains that they are creatures whose purpose is to serve the baddest villain. But they always have hard time keeping their masters since their efforts to help them always unintentionally leads their masters to a not-so-good fate. The failure to find a master leads them to a depression and one Minion (Kevin?) decides to bring some of his friends along to find a new villain to serve, that is Scarlet Overkill (voiced by Sandra Bullock).
The movie itself is quite fun. It has plenty of laughs, and even if the majority of the laughs are slapstick comedy, the Gibberish spoken by the Minions are always something to giggle on. They do silly stuff. Their interactions with humans are fascinating and funny. They run into ridiculously impossible situations yet somehow manage a way to find solve it. It's hilarious. The gadgets are visually dazzling and cool to look at, but everything else was a bit lacking.
This spin-off lacks the incredibly likable human characters its predecessors had. No Gru. No Agnes. It substitutes them with a couple consisting of Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock) and her husband Herb (Jon Hamm). They do not resonate with us as Gru and the three girls did with us in the previous two films. The signature Gru accent is absent. The awkwardness of Gru trying to become a good dad is absent. The vibrant and distinct personalities of the three girls are absent. But rather than replacing them with other rich characters, we just get a female super villain who's really just a control freak or a megalomaniac, with a husband who simply just supports her along the way. I can't help but feel that they are just dull as compared to what we were offered previously. (There's also one random villain family but they're also plain.)
Ultimately, the lack of dynamic human characters causes this spin- off to not be able to achieve what I really loved about the first two films besides the Minions, that is the ability to have touching moments. In the first film, there was an arc when Gru started to actually open his heart to the girls, and when he started to gradually become kinder and more giving. The scene in space where he finally shrunk the Moon, but realized that he was on the verge of missing the girls' recital. The bonding between the girls and Gru. In the second film, there was this scene where Gru felt depressed after Lucy was relocated somewhere else, where he just sat outside his home alone in the rain. Agnes comes and the two have a chat.
In the end, it's a lighthearted comedy and it's enjoyable. Kids will undoubtedly devour it and will glee at the sight of those yellow Minions. But for those who expect something more than just rampage and silly antics, well this movie doesn't offer to you that much. It reinforces the popularity of the Minions but it's quite a shame that this movie could have been done with more thought and heart, but ultimately chose not to pursue it.