Lacks The Substance To Justify Being A Feature-Length Film

Rating: 4/10 (1 July 2015)

I enjoyed the Despicable Me films. However, I was never really all that crazy about the minions. They would make me chuckle occasional, but I never found them to be the main attraction of those films like a lot of people do. I feel like they've just been really overexposed now to the point it's become annoying. With that said, I was really hoping this movie would surprise me as Despicable Me did.
Unfortunately, it's was pretty much exactly what I expected to be. I wouldn't go as far as saying it's terrible, but it's not good. The main problem with the film is that the Minions don't provide enough substance to justify a feature-length film. What made Despicable Me work was that it had fun characters and humor that could be enjoyed by both kids and adults. Minions on the other hand relies almost completely on the simplest of slapstick humor which gets old quickly. As far as the plot goes, it's pretty weak and feels almost non- existent at times. It honestly felt like more of a television special than an actual movie. There were a few moments that made me chuckle, but by the 40 minute mark I was bored and ready for it to wrap up. Sandra Bullock's character was disappointing as well. I was hoping she would be sort of a female Gru, but she was very generic and rather dull. I also found the animation to be pretty bland compared to a lot of other recent animated films.
Even though it does have some chuckle-worthy moments and features one of the best soundtracks in a film this year, I can't really recommend it. Even with a short running time, there just isn't enough here to justify this feature-length spin-off. While it never gets quite as annoying as I feared, the humor is just too repetitive and shallow for it to really appeal to anyone over the age of 10. This one is strictly for the kids. Minions ends up being another example of what happens when Hollywood tries to milk too much of a good thing.