It was cute and had some funny moments but it's nowhere near as fun and smart as the Despicable Me movies. It honestly feels a bit like a direct-to-video sequel with a higher budget as the animation is definitely stunning. It runs about 75 minutes without credits too. Still though, it's a decent time at the movies. I'm surprised they got such a high profile voice cast as no one really does much. It's also much more directed towards children than the movies that spawned it. B


By the way, this is a direct prequel to the first film. A few of the characters from the other movies even appear, without spoiling anything.

I thought it was pretty dire. I'm not a huge fan of the Despicable Me franchise but the movies are at least enjoyable. This one goes nowhere and isn't funny at all. The kids even seemed restless, despite its incredibly short running time. The five year old I saw it with wanted to leave.

D

Minions is exactly what one could expect based upon the trailers: enjoyably wacky, but ultimately very slight. The antics of the titular little yellow guys are still as much absurd fun to watch here as they are in the two Despicable Me films, and there are enough clever sight gags littered throughout the film that it rarely becomes boring. Where it falls well short of its predecessors, however, is that it lacks the heart that those films had. Short of a character arc like Gru's growth as a father figure, there's not much reason to be invested in the human characters one way or the other (in fact, Sandra Bullock's character is disappointingly generic - Bullock probably had fun hamming it up in the studio, but the character herself is a standard-order villainess who never seems particularly menacing or memorable), and the antics of the yellow sidekicks can only carry the movie so far. It's probably going to go over well with viewers who enjoyed the previous films (and will undoubtedly be a huge hit with children), but nothing at the screening I attended highlighted what the movie is missing better than the fact that the biggest reaction from the audience came from the callback to the previous films that occurs in the final five minutes.

B-

It sucked. Besides a few fairly amusing moments, which all featured Bob I think, it was mindless. I even dosed off once, and I can't remember the last time that's happened.

B-, Despicable Me
C+, Despicable Me 2
D+, Minions

Pretty boring after seeing the trailer a billion times.

Minions makes the decision to stand out as a different film than the Despicable Me films. They could have found a new human character to build a storyline around like Groot in the original two films but instead choose to use a plot existant but as if in the background. Conflicts don't so much occur as much as reasons for the Minions to go somewhere. Effectively the film is one large animated hijinks sequence only momentarily uninterrupted. This makes it a somewhat unique animated film and piece of art however it comes with some weaknesses. As one could expect with less of a human story to follow it is harder to feel emotionally connected to the story. They do their best with Sandy as Scarlett Overkill as her villain has a surprising tenderness at moments and the insecurity and wish to be loved makes her feel human like Groot. Giving her some human layers helps the film have a desperately needed grounding in reality. I enjoyed this Scarlet and Hamm's Herb a lot more than if they had been really evil and menacing. Although when added to how Herb is a nice guy the two don't feel overly threatening as much as they do playing a fun villain game with the Minions. Furthermore the reality of Britain is undercut when the monarchy is transferred to Bob and to Scarlet so easily. The importance of restoring the monarchy doesn't feel as real when it's already been used as joke material enough to make a Minion king. As a result the stakes in the 3rd act struggle to build intensity.

Visually it is a strong film and takes advantages of historical timestamps of 1968 America and Britain well. From a visual perspective seeing the Minions run around and interact with everything is entertaining in itself. Perhaps the biggest problem with the film is it's just not as funny as the Despicable Me films. Clearly from a humor perspective the Minions are an overdipped Oreo cookie and a key to their humour in the previous films is unpredictability created from them not being on screen. The contrast human animated characters and lunacy Minions disappears as for the Minions lunacy is normal. I became too used to the Minions to laugh at them anymore.

Minions is an entertaining little animated film but perhaps little is the right word. The story weight is of a 30 minute animated cartoon stretched out. Compared to the two Despicable Me it feels like a well done but slight side project. Nevertheless there have been a lot of worthless animations released the last decade and a half by studios like Dreamworks and Minions is not one of them. It has a unique feel and artistry to it for good or bad and there is care put into the details of each moment. For that I can respect it.

Shack is gonna shack.

This is deeply awful. If it wasn't for the distracting narration, the opening segment involving the Minions ventures through history would be pretty amusing. But as soon as they get to the convention the film craters and just keeps falling deeper and deeper. In particular the humans characters were exceedingly dull; save for one sight gag involving the Queen, every joke involving them was met with crickets during my showing.

The more I think about this the more I think this was a piece of shit. Nothing memorable and Scarlet Overkill has to be one of the worst villians in an animated film, so boring.

I liked it but didn't love it unfortunately. Most of the funny bits were in the trailer, and the plot overall was weak. It had lots of amusing parts that failed to mesh into an exceedingly amusing movie. It was okay, but I even liked SpongeBob better than this. Scarlet was an okay character, but her and the other humans didn't have enough to do. I did applaud the large scope, which was refreshing in comparison to other animated spinoffs.

B-

It also managed the task of feeling too short and too long at the same time. Too short because I was hoping for some sort of Thursday twist, and too long because there were many short stretches where nothing was happening.

I saw this less than two weeks ago and I literally remember nothing that happened in it. It's so average.

If so, change your signature now!

This origin story for the crowd-pleasing, pill-shaped, vivid-yellow henchmen from the wildly popular Despicable Me franchise hardly qualifies as a film in a conventional sense. It is more a rapid-fire series of parodies and set pieces, loosely strung together. There are several times when its operating logic of finding the shortest way to the next chase scene set to a swinging-sixties pop hit (by the Doors, the Kinks, the Who, and other seminal "the" bands) results in moments of genuine buoyancy and visual wit, and the Minions remain charming even when they are the sole focus of an hour-and-a-half feature. But I can already tell the film will not stay in my mind long: there is just not much beneath the surface or even on the surface. It is 100-percent superficial pop and whimsy. And the producers need not have paid for such a lavish voice cast. (Seriously, Steve Coogan and Michael Keaton were in this? The credits say so, but I am still suspicious.) Any character who is not yellow and communicating with pidgin-Spanish beeps is an astonishing bore, and the film stalls when a scene focuses more on them than the Minions.

C+

Strongly agree with this. The prologue is full of clever ideas, but too rushed, and Geoffrey Rush's hand-holding narration ruins any chance of inspired visual storytelling.

This is pretty much spot on.

This was horrible. One of the least favorite films I've ever seen in theaters- reminds me a lot of Shrek 3 in terms of its tone and weak storyline. At least my youngest sibling ended up enjoying it, so it wasn't a complete loss.

Vexing, taxing and teeth gnashing. D+

Oof. If I were a parent I'd be pissed. I'm pretty pissed as it is having to pay $9.00 as it is, but imagine two parents having to drag a kid or two to this. To drive home my point, let's pretend it's a family of four. That's $36 bucks for a NON 3-D SHOWING. If it had been a 3-D showing, you're looking at a $3.50 upcharge. That's $50 bucks. Throw in snacks and that's about $75 (and for four I'm being generous). All that is if you see it during a matinee on any day but a Tuesday. I dont even want to do the numbers for a night showing. Which leads me to my first point.

If you pay more than a rental fee to see this movie you're getting taken. The movie barely runs over 70 minutes. If your a parent there are literally thousands of ways you could entertain your kid for 70 minutes (easy for me to say as someone who is single). But if you must insist on taking your kid to a movie, go see Inside Out, and if you've already seen it, see it again. That's a great movie! Or see Ant-Man. That's good too!

Which leads to point number two: there's barely enough movie to sustain a 70 minute running time. It turns out the Minions can't sustain their own movie. Being cute only gets you so far. If the screenwriter, director and producers had given another go at the script, then the Minions could've been something special, but this feels like it was thrown together in about an hour. The whole thing feels botched

And most importantly, if you thought Gru and their girls were kind of expendable, turns out your wrong. They're the heart of the Despicable Me movies. The biggest problem with Minions is that it has no heart. It feels nothing more than a cash grab by Universal and based on the box office, job well done!

* (D)

I was going to give this an even lower grade until little Gru showed up. At least the movie ended on a solid note.

I found the trailer, and plenty of these Minion's statement pictures online quite funny, but when enduring them for more than a few min. it becomes dull. Through the film I came to find Minions just simply annoying, their unintelligible speech, and silly behavior is just not engaging to watch. The film reaches its highlight only at the end when Gru appears, and the end credits are a funny set-piece as well. Other than that it really drags, from scene to scene.
I thought Bullock and Hamm were good in the villain roles, but it didn't contribute me to finding it any more appealing to watch.
The clumsy situations the 3 main characters find them self in throughout the film might be funny in itself, but in the film as a whole none of them worked for me.
Even while it did finish well, I was relieved when it was over.

D

I'm in the minority here. I found this to be a light fun romp which is really what the Minions are all about. The run through history and final Sixties setting are refreshing and elevate this from other modern pop culture orientated animated pics. That said I have no particular love for the Despicable Me franchise so my expectations were not high.

Grade : B

so the minions would've worked for the nazis, right?

right, mainly just hitler