"Roger, go at throttle up . . . "

Rating: 7/10 (12 July 2015)

. . . seems to be the end of Kevin, as the MINIONS animators painstakingly recreate one of the most iconic images of the late 20th Century: the twisted mess of contrails splayed across the blue sky after the Jan. 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. In Real Life, this disaster blew up Christa McAuliffe--the first Teacher in Space--and six others, but in the Animated Universe, Giganticized Minion Kevin not only survives HIS version of the Challenger Explosion, but is inexplicably reduced back to his proper (if diminutive) size. Not only are the contrails of the Challenger Disaster faithfully reproduced here, but also the pregnant pause among the crowd of equally horrified on-lookers desperately hoping it's all a bad dream for Kevin (as the Challenger viewers had once prayed). Since this flick comes from that premier House of Horror, Universal Studios, it would be disingenuous to criticize them for spoofing the Challenger Tragedy for their big cartoon climax. No doubt they'll wait another five or ten years to make an animated reference to the Twin Towers collapsing on 9-11.