An OK movie, but probably the most important animated feature of the year for fans of a certain Disney film...

Rating: 5/10 (13 July 2015)

There is a general consensus that animated movies nowadays ought to be held to a certain standard; that being that they should be made for both children and adults rather than just pandering to what a child may want to see for and hour and a half. I proudly say that "Minions" is not a movie of that caliber. Not even close. It is pure childlike nonsense that any remotely responsible adult can tolerate. It rests somewhere firmly between an enjoyable trip to the zoo and sulking around a Chuck E Cheese.
One of the chief concerns of naysayers when trailers dropped was that Minions can't talk. That should have been a real red flag for people because you can't have a film that features 3 main characters who talk in a language the audience doesn't understand and expect it to legitimately work unless you use subtitles. This was not really a problem because the titular Minions are animated with a lot of charisma and physicality, the audience understands just enough, especially when the screenwriters cheat a bit and force them to use English words whenever they feel that kids would be completely lost if they didn't.
Now I'd have to be stupid to walk into this movie and expect to legitimately find it gripping given what we've seen these little screwballs do in the "Despicable Me" films, and thankfully it delivered. I'd rather watch a movie about these little guys embrace the stupidity of it all than try to be something it isn't. I don't want to watch a spinnoff of a movie that features a bad guy who hid a pyramid by painting it blue and have it try to be "Grave of the Fireflies". All they do for the first half hour is fart around from place to place and joke to joke until they find a new master. Once the plot gets going, it seems a bit tired. It just seems like they wrote the 2nd half of Despicable Me 3 except there's no Gru around. It's pretty predictable and childish, but ,again, that's why we're here.
Now as long as your sensibilities are appropriately lowered, there is a bit to enjoy about certain parts of the movie. As opposed to other movies like "Home" or "Strange Magic" that are either genuinely awful or boring for anyone who can list all 5 vowels, "Minions" actually has moments of being genuinely cute and more, more, more, more moments of being so surreal that adults will be invested if only to see what they're going to do next. It's not every day an adult can say that he saw a movie where the main characters are hanged, but don't die because they don't have necks; so they just laugh, fall through the noose, and climb back up to fall though again. That's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the insanity. There's a homage to Ghostbusters, a family of hitchhikers who turn out to be bank robbers, a scene implying that a minion had a threesome with two fire hydrants, and a sequence where three British guards are hypnotized into stripping to their underwear and dancing while swinging hair that drops below their waists. I don't think that anyone who actually bothered to go see this movie would be put off by these sequences to deem them too weird for them, myself included. Now everyone generally shares my thoughts that "Minions" was a fun, if stupid, kids film. It won't win any Oscars because "Inside Out" is a thing now, but people say that it was a fine film that isn't even worth nitpicking. I mean honestly, you can be busy pointing out plot holes, but you may as well scold a refrigerator for being cold. I say this because I am going to make a prediction that is already starting to come true:
PEOPLE. ARE. GOING. TO. HATE. THIS. MOVIE. HATE IT. And that is the best thing to happen to "Frozen".
Why? Because of the marketing. "Minions" is probably the best thing to happen to "Frozen" fans since the Nostalgia Critic's Disneycember review. One of the few legitimate criticism against it as an IP rather than just as a film is that "Frozen" suffers from too much overexposure and merchandising, which is true despite my fervent love of the film.
Deadline.com says:
"Yep, there is no escaping the saturation of minion products: band- aids, backpacks, thumb drives, wrapping paper, pencil sets, key chains, iPhone cases, lunch boxes, sleeping bags, action figures, bedspreads, floor mats, umbrellas, straws, travel neck cushion pillows, flip flops, cake toppers (edible and not), thermoses, car decals, napkin holders, piggy banks, body pillows, cookie cutters, bath towels, area rugs, men's ties, shower curtain hooks, luggage tags, toothbrushes, wallpaper, drapes, popsicle sticks, banana scented bubble bath, sleepwear, eyewear, underwear, overwear  Somebody stop them. No. Really."
Anyone with half a brain could see the merchandising taking root. But unlike Frozen which could only effectively market to girls, Minions merch can be gender neutral (or made for a specific gender) and require far less creativity to make. My prediction also states that people will leave "Frozen" alone in terms of merchandising and turn to "Minions" instead. "Frozen" certainly has more artistic merit and deserves a fair analysis free from marketing bias more than "Minions" does because it certainly tries to be more than just a fun diversion. "Minions" is here to restore some balance to the world.
While the marketing has no effect on the quality of the film, it will cause an inevitable hype backlash; which is really a shame because the movie's not worth hating. The only real downside is that it's horribly juvenile and has no redeeming qualities beyond providing an hour and a half of surreal humor.
5/10 Don't bother to own this movie, but see it in theaters or rent it when it gets to Redbox or Netlix.