PLOT: A young Gru (Steve Carrell) tries to join a group of super villains called The Vicious 6 but is kidnapped by a former member. Now, the Minions must rescue their beloved mini-boss.
REVIEW: Here’s the thing – after four movies, you already know whether or not the Minions are to your liking. If you like the little gibberish-speaking yellow guys, Minions: The Rise of Gru is definitely worth seeing, as there’s plenty of hijinx packed into the compact eighty-eight-minute running time, and kids will likely love it. But, if you’re someone who’s not sold on them, there’s nothing about this new Minions sequel (and prequel to Despicable Me) that will change your mind. It’s more of the same – but it will still make a mint at the box office.
The franchise has already grossed something like $3.7 billion globally, but the charm on display in the first three films has been lacking from the Minions spin-off movies, which seem designed to print money and little else. In this one, Steve Carrell returns as Gru (after mostly sitting the first Minions out), doing a “young Gru” voice that he milks for as many laughs as he can. However, as this is a Minions movie, much of the action revolves around the nonsense-spouting creatures, who are always painfully devoted to their master (but why?).
One of the most intriguing things about this Minions sequel is that Illumination, who can basically get anyone they want to voice act in their movies at this point, recruited a who’s who to voice the bad guy team – the Vicious 6. There’s Jean-Claude Van Damme as “Jean Clawed,” a bad guy with a giant mechanical lobster hand. His Universal Soldier co-star Dolph Lundgren in Svengeance, a rollerskating Viking baddie, while Lucy Lawless is an evil nun, “Nunchuck” (get it?). Danny Trejo is Stronghold, who has mechanical hands, while Taraji P. Henson is the group’s leader, Belle Bottom. Casting JCVD and Lundgren was enough to get my butt into a seat, but I was let down by the fact that neither got to do a ton in their minor parts. Henson gets the lion’s share of dialogue.
The most significant role here, besides Gru, goes to the ever-active Alan Arkin, who plays the former leader of the Vicious 6, Wild Knuckles, who kidnaps Gru and becomes his mentor. The premise is that Gru has stolen a medallion with magical powers, but it’s lost because one of the Minions traded it for a “pet rock” (note – this is set in the seventies when those were a thing). Luckily, the medallion now belongs to a friendly biker (RZA) who’s happy to help the Minions in their evil but adorable quest. Julie Andrews, Russell Brand, and even Michelle Yeoh as a kung-fu master all lend their voices, so to say the voice cast is stacked is an understatement.
Minions: The Rise of Gru is only lightly amusing for the parents who will be dragged along to the movie by their kids (early box office numbers suggest the series is still running strong). It’s too bad that, unlike the Despicable Me movies, the Minions movies are so thinly plotted. They seem like a loose assembly of antics rather than full-on features, and this sequel doesn’t do much to raise the bar. Yet another Despicable Me sequel is due out next year, so presumably, that one will have a little more substance, but until then, consider this Minions sequel a lark and not much else. At least it has a fun seventies soundtrack, and at 88 minutes, no one can say that it overstays its welcome. In this era of bloated sequels, that’s at least saying something.