Minions: The Rise of Gru
After five feature films, countless shorts and video games, audiences know who the Minions are (if you don’t, they’re the little yellow creatures in all the memes your aunt posts on Facebook), but filmmakers have had a hard time using them to their full potential. Partly because the Minions themselves work best as comic relief, and partly due to the character of Gru becoming a millstone around the franchise’s neck. Gru’s not that evil, he’s not that funny, and he seems to “find the true meaning of family” in every movie—he should really write that down somewhere.
Director Kyle Balda (Despicable Me 3) decides to side-step Gru’s problematic character development and focus on what both kids and adults enjoy: Minion antics. The critters are essentially agents of chaos. They screw up everything until they accidentally stumble upon something that fixes all the problems they’ve caused. Think of them as a slightly more altruistic version of Bugs Bunny. This film is a breezy tribute to their antics without ever feeling mawkish or dragging.
Verdict: At this point, you should know whether you like the Minions or not. If you do, catch this one on streaming.
