Minions (2015), PG, ★★

Stuart, Kevin and Bob before Gru.

The Despicable Me franchise, compiled of two movies, has started its inception with a neat concept of a bad guy forced to be turned into a good guy because he had to raise three adopted girls. The first movie was funny, clever and sweet because of its human nature and irreverent satire. The latter can be brought up because the secondary characters, Gru's minions, provided some childish but comic humor and also you cannot resist how cute and small they are while they are reciting their own gibberish talk to Gru and to each other. But, the question is: how did they get to know Gru and how did they exist? The spin-off gave us some answer to those questions and with a spin-off, you need to have a story. Well, the minions are adorable but the story is a TV special that is suited for only the young crowd. It is a product that carries itself too far.

The narrator (Geoffrey Rush) provides a brief history to us, the audience, as how the Minions (voiced by Pierre Coffin) came to Earth. They started out as little organisms beneath the ocean and as they formed and matured, they made their way to the surface. They follow any specimen as a leader like a T-Rex, vampire, Napoleon, etc. but every single time, they unfortunately cause trouble for their leader and end up as a dire casualty. However, the Minions run into an ice cave as a sanctuary and they build their own civilization, but they get bored without a master to follow. However, a Minion named Kevin asks for volunteers to come with him to find a master. He finds Bob and Stuart to come with him.

The three ride a boat, starved, and end up in New York City in 1968. The Minions are amused by the era and are vulnerable by the culture. However, as they find shelter in an unoccupied room, they are watching TV and find an ad that advertises Villain Con, where the villains find henchmen, including the most popular villain, Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock). Kevin, Stuart and Bob see her as they finally found a master to follow.

Based on the ad on television, they see that Villain-Con is in Orlando, Florida and see if they can hitch a ride and find Walter and Madge Nelson (voiced by Michael Keaton and Allison Janney) and their three children as they are a family of bank robbers and based on their getaway, they are impressed by the Minions. The group makes it to Villain-Con at a secret entrance and see Scarlet Overkill make a stand-out introduction and challenges people to steal the ruby out of her hand and the Minions do it without her looking and she announces that the Minions will be their new henchmen and they are happy to find a master.

Scarlett Overkill and her henchmen. 

I was excited and intrigued by the spin-off because I liked them in the Despicable Me movies as they provide the slapstick that The Three Stooges unapologetically created and it reminded me of that era of comic relief. However, just like the hideous Farrelly brothers movie, even though it is not as bad, the movie gets lost in its unorganized and undisciplined storyline as the jokes by the Minions become tiresome and a bit boring. The problem is that there is no development with their characters and also with them integrated to the story as they are just there to make us laugh and they did that about 50% of the time but mostly in the first half as they are struggling to find someone to be their master.

All of the cast are having fun including Sandra Bullock voicing the female super-villain and I think it would have been a lot more interesting if she and Gru go against each other with each of their minions to see who will conquer the world. But, we got to have a routine plot as she wants to steal the crown from the Queen of England. Didn't Cars 2 created this plot with the spy genre? Even, this plot in the Minions spin-off does not work as we just solely pay attention to the Minions. We do not care whether the crown is stolen or not.

This product is too much of a good thing. It's solely comfort food for the eyes and for our emotions. These banana-looking, yellow and adorable characters have generated a lot of marketing vibes based on its trailers and its sponsors of certain events. The characters are somewhat formed but the movie's story is lost in the mix because of the irreverent jokes that interweave with the main story and some do not work to provide the comic relief. This will be great entertainment for the children as they will laugh out loud at the slapstick and the jokes but other than that, it is a sloppy animated piece.

**