Cute but not Inside Out.
Minions
Grade: B-
Directors: Kyle Balda (Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax), Pierre Coffin (Despicable Me 2)
Screenplay: Brian Lynch (Big Helium Dog)
Cast: Sandra Bullock voice (Heat), Michael Keaton voice (Birdman)
Rating: PG
Runtime: 91 min
by John DeSando
“Doesn't it feel so good to be bad?” Scarlett Overkill (Sandra Bullock voice)
Well, I’m feeling “bad” because I just saw Inside Out, and Minions is no Inside Out. Inside Out is insightful about the emotions of a pre-adolescent girl, and all of us by extension, yet Minions is a sometimes cute, lightweight animation about goggled, puny pills who speak child-like gibberish that now and then throws in a discernible word like “boss.” As for insight, there is little, like the little people themselves.
A “boss” is what the little travelers are searching for through history until they find permanence with the meanie of the Despicable franchise. The Minions want to serve the worst person in the world, a little like Republicans looking for a leading candidate in a crowded field. Although Scarlett Overkill (Sandra Bullock voice) is a worthy candidate, no one can compete with Gru (Steve Carell).
Along the way of history, the best part of the film for me, they encounter notables like T-Rex and Napoleon, who suffer the danger of the little ones’ benign benevolence, always tempered by their colossal ignorance. The funniest for me is their exposing Dracula to direct sunlight.
The most likeable historical figure for me is the current Queen Elizabeth (Jennifer Saunders), whose toothy joie de vivre best exemplifies the light-hearted view of history fostered by directors Kyle Balda and Pierre Coffin. The tour of London stereotypes, structures and people, is basic but welcome to this Anglophile.
The best insight into humanity is the child-like character of the minions themselves, whose anarchic behavior is not unlike that of most terrible two’s.
My disappointment with Minions may stem from my being a language person frustrated by the animators’ attempt to relay emotion and meaning, a la Chaplain and Wall-E, without words. These pill-shaped heroes don’t do it for me except to say, “Well, at least I’m cute.”
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com