We went to see it last night, after enjoying the first two Despicable Me movies. A licensed paper plate of a movie, brightly coloured, but thin, shallow, none too sturdy, and ultimately disposable. The plot was paper-thin and full of holes - just what were all the other henchmen doing in London at the end? - and Scarlett’s characterisation was all over the shop - this smart, tough, cool resourceful woman, and all she wanted was
to be a princess? Really? She’s the self-made Queen of the villain world, but of course all her motivation boils down to is wanting to be pretty and popular and wear a crown.
No human characters beyond the wobbly cardboard Scarlett and Herb, then, and no development of them beyond her mounting exasperation at her bungling henchmen. What I really wanted to see more of was the Nelsons, who were interesting enough to develop further; and Michael Keaton’s voicing of Mr Nelson made you want to know more about this weirdly likable family and how their odd lifestyle came about.
What was left was essentially a series of loosely strung together visual set-pieces, the impact of which depends how much you like Minions. I do, personally, but they work much better as old-fashioned Warners-style short cartoons or as supporting characters in a larger narrative. One of the reasons Despicable Me {and, to a lesser extent, its sequel} worked so well was that it had genuine emotional resonance : you really cared about the fate of the girls and the redemption of Gru, and the Minions were used sparingly to move the plot on as well as being the slapstick relief.
Over an hour and a half of them blundering, gibbering and singing in silly voices, though, and they start to wear a little thin. I was also really surprised to see that the hanging gag made it the final cut, in a film aimed at young children.
I can’t see it until this Friday, but one of the things I noticed was that they changed the minions to “silly but competent” to slapstick stupid.
If you watch the 2 Despicable movies (especially the first one) the minions are silly, funny, and cartoon-y…but they get shit done. They successfully steal the shrink ray, they successfully help in the stealing of, and eventual return of, the moon. They may be weird and silly, but they aren’t stupid.
This movie makes it seem like they’re stupid. How close am I?
Pretty much; they’re accidental achievers who only succeed through inciting calamities that somehow end in their favour. Previous Minions were easily distracted but had a core of competence; these ones are mostly amiably stupid: one the key motivators of the story is that they’ve accidentally killed almost every boss they’ve worked for*. You’d want the first lot on your team, with all their eccentricities, but in this film they’re mostly a hindrance who only win because the plot says so.
*Not a spoiler, it’s in the opening exposition, which is somewhat lazy.
If the new thread I started gets locked this is a copy and paste of my review.
I’ll give it a 6 out of 10. I’m not a big descriptive writer but here goes – I know others here are good reviewers and may chime in.
The first 1/4 - 1/3 were entertaining and clever; AND the last five minutes - turns out the movie is a prequel – nuff said But the main antagonist is so over the top it’s not funny. Also the portrayal of British society is quite ugly and mean, not funny except a few spots. It won’t be a hit in Britain. There is the apparent killing of an abominable snowman and NOT in a traditional cartoon-funny technique when it could has been. There are a few spots of adult humor.
Being a car guy, the highlight for me was the amazingly accurate caricatures of real vehicles that kept me looking for detail. The most featured car is an obscure station wagon from 60 years ago – who else can identify it? Through the last half of the movie I was mostly watching background graphics for any Easter eggs or adult humor. Didn’t find much.
Well, that’s very disappointing. I’m supposed to take my son to see this next week. I love the Minions of the first movie - as already described, they’re silly, but they get the job done. I don’t know if I can handle their being turned into slapstick buffoons.
All I know is that they have foul mouths. Out of the three phrases the McDonald’s toy utters, one sounds like “what the fuck” and another “I’ll be damned”. :eek:
Ugh, I saw this today, and it was quite boring. Boring enough that I fell asleep. I’m not even sure my kids liked it as I asked them after what their favorite part was and they couldn’t remember.
What languages are they speaking? I thought I picked up on at least Spanish and French. Did they make they speak a real language or was it just the occasional real word thrown in there?
It was light and funny, but certainly not as good as the other two. The minions get by on their cuteness – and luckily, they have it to spare. It’s good summer entertainment if you’re in a silly move.
The ending cameo was exactly how it should have ended, though.
It was a disappointment. The ending, and I mean the last 5 minutes and the bits during the credits, showed the movie it could have been. I hope they make that one some day.
the minions meet and begin interacting with Gru. It’s not all perfect, but they are the characters we recognize. It was charming. almost made up for the previous 85 minutes.
There were actually just a few minutes where I heard very young children crying in fear.
the torture scene. Which gets slapstick very quickly, but start out very dark. I was surprised they went there.
Other than the very end, the Nelsons are a highlight.
May be tolerable after a champagne brunch for the adults? The kids seemed happy.
The friend I went with tells me she heard an Indonesian word (thankyou, or goodbye, or something) in the mix. Otherwise I’d suspect Esperanto. But yes, I think they deliberately used a mix of languages. Some words/phrases like ‘Si’ and ‘buddies’ and ‘Big Boss’ were clearly used on purpose - I think we’re meant to be able to almost understand them, but mostly not.
Re the ending - I don’t normally do this (I swear! I don’t!) but … wasn’t it obvious? Even before you got in to the movie - that was the only way it could possibly end. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the ending was the first thing they nutted out, and then worked backwards from there.
I never liked Despicable Me that much (I saw Megamind first, and loved it, but that pretty much filled up my “lovable villain” tank). So the movie performed pretty much to expectations for me.
Given how much hype (and where) I’ve seen for this movie, I’m pretty sure it’s awful. It looks like a classic “we have a turd ball on our hands from a famous franchise, we must make sure people know about it and see it before they get told it sucks.”
Excellent movie. Loved the music and the reference to the 60 icons. Hair, the Beatles, even the play on the Abby Road album cover. If you love 60’s music, you’ll get so much more out of the movie.
It’s not awful by any means; it’s perfectly serviceable as a franchise instalment. It’s just - there’s no core to it, and there should have been. And yeah, the theme of the Minions constantly if accidentally killing off their bosses throughout history was just weird, in a light-as-fluff kids comedy where they were at pains to show that the characters with named voice actors would survive nuclear blasts with nothing worse than amusing scorch marks. Apart from slapstick, Minions don’t hurt people, even inadvertently.
