Loved it!

Rating: Null/10 (23 July 2015)

People, I have never seen Despicable 1 nor Despicable 2: I don't watch children movies. I did not even know who Gru or the minions were before I saw the Minions' trailer -while attending another movie in the theater. But somehow that Minions trailer got my attention and did not leave me for a week: I simply had to see this cartoon that created such an original language for its protagonists. A linguistic grab from the get-go. I grabbed 3 friends with a sense of humor -we are all mature adults- and off we went to see Minions. We loved it!
My personal take? MINIONS is not a children's film: it is way too good for kids! To start with, it is sprinkled with cultural references from Mozart' s Magic Flute to Prokofiev to the Beatles to the Monkees to the Who to Napoleon to Godzilla to James Bond to 60s politics and more. I am very sure the viewers who claim they were not entertained by this movie failed to notice the amazing level of culture placement, high and low, packed in that tiny plot. Pretty remarkable for a children's cartoon. Hey, a children's movie that does not bore the parents out of their gourd? Banana! Yes, the plot is silly, but the script is clever. Take the reference to the "fake US lunar landing" every USSR citizen grew up with, for instance: it zips by for a micro second, but what a zest that mini scene packs. The "Papagena" pick-up line by Bob to a fire hydrant in New York? What a beauty of a cultural mash up!
But to me the hilarity palm goes first to the crazy linguistics of the 3 minions' speech. The 3 minions speak gibberish, but with such Esperanto gusto that all viewers understand what they mean. A difficult premise to start a film, but a gambit that works here against all odds. I don't know who the makers of this Minions cartoon are, but I think there is genius to their madness.
The choice of soundtrack music was fun, the action was never flagging, the visuals were pleasant and often spectacular. No kidding: that movie was sweet candy to our ears and eyes, and, banana!, to our brains as well.