OK Summer Air Conditioned Fun

Rating: 5/10 (17 July 2015)

I had a choice of seeing "Ant Man" or this light fare when deciding on a movie. As much as Ant Man is being lauded as good craftsmanship, I am getting a little fatigued on Super Hero movies. Yes, Ant Man is not a sequel, but I grow tired of the same origin story, the same kind of villain, etc. My decision to see Minions was based upon the idea of watching something diverting with perhaps some originality.
I had a grudgingly agreeable time with the Despicable Me movies, partially because they were a little more risqué. The minions were obvious a comic relief for young children, as they constantly were doing physical gags. One reviewer likened "Minions" to a Looney Tunes cartoon, for which I have a fond regard from childhood. So perhaps I thought this big budget outing of the little side characters could have some inventive sight gags. Looney Tunes was created for adults back in the day, Minions is aimed almost strictly at the kids.
The biggest letdown was how lame the villain was. Another thing perhaps worth mentioning is the majority of the film consists of gibberish dialogue that has no captioning. This prevented me from getting that connected with the three main minion characters. In general, the adventures the three minions go through was not driven with much purpose. Yes, there is the overarching story of the minions looking for a new villain to serve, but almost the entire film consists a series of set pieces (like a visit to a department store, with the retched 'clothing montage') that do not advance the story at all. The hyped up "Scarlet Overkill" is just an empty shell of a character compared to Steve Carell's inspired Gru. This is more than obvious when a young Gru appears as part of the closing credits, and I find myself laughing and getting far more excited about these few sight gags than I did for the entire film.
Laughs were few for me, although the crowd of kids in attendance were laughing quite a bit. The lack of laughs came from; uninspired villain, main characters that were too superficial to care about, and set pieces that provided too little bang for the buck. I think it is obvious that this was meant to be a lighter and fluffier animated film, not meant to evoke Pixar (like the movie "Planes" never tried to be a Pixar caliber film). So for me it comes down to whether the brisk pacing and short running time is your best bet for sitting in some air conditioning on a hot summer day. If you're tired of yet another super hero movie, the answer is a not so enthusiastic yes.