Too Much of A Good Thing Isn't A Good Thing in "Minions"

Rating: 3/10 (11 July 2015)

If you've ever seen Despicable Me or its sequel, you will definitely remember the little yellow tic-tacs called the Minions. They stole the show in almost every scene they were in, and they were memorable and cute little sidekicks. However, too much of a good thing isn't necessarily a good thing, and the origin story for the Minions is the perfect example of that. Minions shows what those little bananas did before they met Gru as they journey to the International Supervillain Convention in 1968 and become henchmen to the world's most notorious villain, Scarlet Overkill. The issues with Minions are present from the very first scene and continue throughout the entire film. Much of the humor, as agonizing as this sounds, is supposed to come from the way the Minions talk. That wears out its welcome extremely quickly as you can imagine. Even the jokes that don't concern the Minions are reused numerous times throughout the film, making this movie tedious and repetitive. That could be somewhat forgiven if Minions had interesting characters or a compelling enough story, but unfortunately, this film has none of that. The Minions aren't exactly dramatic characters; they're always the sidekicks, destined to be overshadowed by the villains they serve. Even Scarlet Overkill is a fairly generic villain. She doesn't have any sort of special powers or a unique personality to distinguish herself from other power-hungry female villains. There's never any sort of drama or development with her character. Now onto the unfocused and rushed plot. If you have the attention span of a goldfish, you might find the plot of Minions to be fun, but anyone else will feel like they're being suffocated by the insanity of this film. This movie just never takes a break. There's never a moment where you can calm your senses from the insanity of the previous scene, and it's not because it's some action-packed spectacle. It seemed like the filmmakers were trying to fit as much as they possibly could into each scene so that much younger kids wouldn't be bored. Minions might entertain the least demanding moviegoers and their very young children, but anyone else should stay away from the contrived plot, tired jokes and dull characters littered throughout this movie.