(courtesy IMP Awards)
There’s a glorious sense of escapist release that comes from watching the Minions in action.
They are, despite all their efforts to serve the greatest evil down throughout history and to do so with single-minded determination, as klutzy and ridiculous silly as they come, and while some of them do have an intelligence and wherewithal of sorts, they are by and large perfect fodder for verbal and physical slapstick comedy.
The wonderful thing about Minions & Monsters, among many wonderful things, is their anarchic hilarity is given full vent, to such an extent that they somehow miss that the majority of them aren’t serving any kind of evil master at all, even when they think they are, and that the well-intentioned members of their seemingly bright-yellow, helium-voiced, madcap crowd, James and Henry (voiced, as with all Minions, by Pierre Coffin), who simply want to launch a film career in the early days of Hollywood, are actually being manipulated by an evilly calculating mastermind.
Somehow in the middle of all this masterfully executed and beautifully written silliness, and it’s stress-cancelling, soul-refreshing silliness at its absolutely manic best, Minions & Monsters also manages to be a love letter to the Golden Age of Hollywood.
It name drops the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton, of the Keystone Cops, The Mummy (1932) and Jaws (1975), of Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) and Clash of the Titans (1981), even going as far back as the founders of cinema itself to 1878 and Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon (1912).
It also goes forward in motion, referencing Back to the Future II, E.T. and The Birds, in a museum dedicated the history of cinema where a guide named Olivia, voiced with playful intent by Alison Janney, and who disregards complaints by an exhibit of George Lucas (yes, the man himself) that he’s bored, proceeds to tell eager tourists that the real heroes of cinema are in fact Minions known as James and Henry.
Haven’t heard of them? Well, you are in for a treat because as the guide breathlessly explains, these two Minions wanted more than serving evil on their seemingly immortal CV; they wanted to direct and release a monster feature for the ages and while their friends were off trying to convince a rather hapless alien robot known as Dort (Jesse Eisenberg) to deliver on his mission to invade and enslave Earth – he’s reluctant, especially after he falls in love with a Judy Garland-esque-looking Meet Me in St. Louis suffragette, Debbie (Zoey Deutch) – they are using a purloined dark magic spell book (best left to watching the film to figure that one out) to conjure up the terrifying monsters their creature feature needs to deliver beastly earth-threatening scares and frights.
In just about every way possible, and thank goodness for this because we are the beneficiaries of all kinds of endorphin-releasing ways of their ill-judgement, the Minions get it wrong in this movie (except, in part, for James and Henry, and camera Minion Ed who keeps filming no matter what), underscoring that while they might be endlessly tenacious and devoted, that often blinds to what’s right in front of them.
All of which makes for superbly good, infinitely charming and oft-times sweet slapstick comedy which is never cruel or nasty but good naturedly silly; evil may not triumph ever in these films, and is often accidentally by the better angels of ours and the Minions’ natures, but it’s not want of trying by cute bright yellow creatures who are often more of a hindrance than a help.
That becomes abundantly clear in a gorgeously manic montage where we see the Minions, rushing from one bad guy to another in a desperate bid to find a master they can serve whom they won’t also accidentally sabotage and destroy – they mean well but their good intentions rarely find long-lasting or competent expression – put paid to one evil master after another.
What starts out well never ends well, and so, when the Minions reach early twentieth century Hollywood, and alternately spy Dort or try to launch a career in the movies all while summoning a cute green demonic being who actually wants to take over the world with some very hungry monsters in tow, it doesn’t take long for it all to go hilariously and messily pear-shaped.
Directed by the voice of the Minions himself, Pierre Coffin who co-wrote the screenplay with Brian Lynch, Minions & Monsters adds some real emotional heft to the manically slapstick antics of its eponymous protagonists.
Granted, it’s not Oscar-worthy emotional heft because that would be more ridiculous than many of the rapturously funny gags in the film, but there are some really lovely moments where once again you realise the Minions have hopes and dreams and are actually kinda sweet if they can just get their act together.
Or honestly, even if they don’t.
In the middle of all the laughing, and there’s plenty of that in the gag-a-minute comedic bliss of Minions & Monsters, there are some charming moments of rather lovely humanity which is important because we want to love the Minions every bit as much as we laugh at them.
It’s this commitment to add deftly placed moments of humanity to the Minions films generally, and Minions & Monsters in particular, which add some unexpected substance to the film and which make the MCU-like final act battle for the soul of L.A., and by extension, the Earth itself, actually feel like it matters.
Yes, it’s all enormously silly and fabulously, endlessly, clutch-your-sides funny, and it will do your bad news-ravaged souls a world of inner child good, but Minions & Monsters also has a lovely streak of emotionality running through it, meaning you can lap up and adore all the silly visual and sometimes even verbal jokes and still walk away feeling like it all meant something, even if in passing.
A mix of mania and sort of meaning (but not too much; let’s not get carried away here), Minions & Monsters is an unalloyed joy that is a love letter to the Golden Age of Cinema, a celebration of the Minions capacity for often unfulfilled and misdirected devotion and the best laugh you will have had for ages which, given the state of the world, is no bad thing.