Minions

Minions is a 2015 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Illumination Entertainment for Universal Pictures. It is the spin-off prequel and the third installment overall in the mh:greatestmovies:Despicable Me franchise. Directed by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda, written by Brian Lynch, and produced by Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy, the film stars the voices of Coffin (as the Minions, including Kevin, Stuart, and Bob), Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan, and Jennifer Saunders, with narration by Geoffrey Rush.

The film was first hinted at in the end credits of Despicable Me 2, during which Kevin, Stuart, and Bob, three of the Minions and the film's main characters, are seen auditioning for the film. Minions had its world premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on June 11, 2015, and was released in the United States on July 10, 2015.

The sequel, Minions: The Rise of Gru, was released on July 2022.

Plot
Evolving from single-celled yellow organisms at the dawn of time, Minions live to serve, but find themselves working for a continual series of unsuccessful masters, from a T-rex to Napoleon. Without a master to grovel for, the Minions fall into a deep depression. But one minion, Kevin, has a plan; accompanied by his pals Stuart and Bob, Kevin sets forth to find a new evil boss for his brethren to follow. Their search leads them to Scarlet Overkill, the world's first-ever super-villainess.

Despicable Qualities

 * 1) The idea of a film about the Minions is not very interesting, because they were meant to be comic reliefs and not the main stars; of course, they are the most popular characters in the franchise, going as far as having mini-films and dominating the soundtrack, even having earned the position of the official mascot of Illumination, and they can be hilarious sometimes, but that doesn't mean they can hold up a film on their own, something obvious from the fact they are incapable of speech. It would be the impression that its concept would be good on paper than anything else.
 * 2) It's likely the only reason why this film was made was because the Minions became very popular in the Despicable Me franchise as it and was just made to cash in. Illumination likely saw the box office hits of the previous Despicable Me films and tried to milk the series just for money.
 * 3) * The movie also had a somewhat troubled production history: It was officially announced in July 2012, nearly an entire year before the release of mh:greatestmovies:Despicable Me 2, with an intended release date of December 2014, thus only giving it two and a half years to mature, as opposed to the first two movies which took three years each. However, after the huge success of Despicable Me 2, the movie was pushed back to the next summer, not because of production setbacks, but in order to maximize profit from both box office and merchandising. Additionally, original director Chris Renaud stepped aside from the project to work on mh:greatestmovies:The Secret Life of Pets, and original screenwriters Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio were replaced with Brian Lynch, whose only previous work for the series had been the Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem ride at Universal.
 * 4) The film is inferior to the first two movies in just about every conceivable way, as it lacks the heart, humor and engaging characters that made the first two movies special in the first place. On top of that, the movie has little to no connection to the other movies aside from Gru appearing at the end, and it feels like they just shoved the Minions into the most basic story they could think of.
 * 5) * All of the main characters are essentially inferior versions of the first movie’s protagonists: Kevin is Margo, Stuart is Edith, Bob is Agnes, and Scarlet Overkill is Gru. This reaches the point where, up until the Minions betray Scarlet Overkill, the plot feels like a retread of the first movie.
 * 6) The Minions are obnoxious, loud, and are sometimes annoying and never shut up to the point where they just easily get on your nerves.
 * 7) The movie tries to force you to care about a race of creatures who are essentially nothing more than obnoxious comic reliefs with little to no personality, so any emotional moments involving the Minions fall flat.
 * 8) Plot holes:
 * 9) *Since the Minions apparently only exist to serve evil, this implies that they would've left Gru when he stopped being a villain in the first mh:greatestmovies:Despicable Me.
 * 10) *It is heavily implied that the Minions are immortal, and therefore have no need to reproduce, as the same number of Minions are seen throughout the movie. However, Bob looks and acts younger than the other Minions, despite likely being the same age.
 * 11) *There’s a recurring gag throughout the movie where Stuart mistakes a yellow fire hydrant for a female Minion and tries to flirt with it, despite the fact that all Minions are male or possibly genderless.
 * 12) *When angry at Stuart, Bob and Kevin, Scarlet tapes over their mouths whilst she lectures them. Minions don't have noses. They wouldn't have been able to breathe, yet they showed no ill effects of being starved of oxygen.
 * 13) The Minions aren't in any way translated, which almost ruins the experience.
 * 14) The movie itself only involves the Minions trying to find a new leader, and yet most of the movie boils down to a lot of filler, with practically nothing going on during the movie, to the point where Scarlet Overkill gets three introductions. The plot itself also suffers from being fairly boring, mainly due to the fact that there is only weak humor compared to any real character development or interesting concepts.
 * 15) Atrocious humor that can be rather inappropriate for the movie’s target audience.
 * 16) * Perhaps the most infamously cringeworthy moment in the movie is the scene where Stuart hypnotizes three guards to strip down to their underwear and spank each other, all while singing “Hair” in Minionese.
 * 17) * When the Minions disguise themselves as a female to sneak into the Tower of London, one of the Minions grabs the "breasts".
 * 18) * One scene involves Stuart walking into a hot tub wearing nothing but a thong, while the camera fixates on his butt.
 * 19) * Most of the humor that isn't fart jokes or uncomfortable moments is just surface-level British stereotypes, which many other movies have handled better.
 * 20) All three of the lead Minions have no real personality, with Kevin being the generic "fearless leader", Stuart having little to no personality aside from liking music, and Bob who is just the tag-along kid. Speaking of the Minions, the rest of the Minions practically do nothing the entire movie aside from a few small scenes.
 * 21) Scarlet Overkill is a generic and lame villain, and her plan is as basic and generic as it sounds: she wants to overthrow the queen of England so she can become queen. Her sudden change from being kind to the Minions into outright wanting to destroy them also feels very forced as it had little to no build-up. Even though Sandra Bullock did a great job for voicing her, it wasn't enough to make Scarlet Overkill a great villain at all.
 * 22) The movie feels the need to include a narrator during the opening scene, but dispenses of him after 15 minutes, and he doesn’t show up again until the last five minutes.
 * 23) The fact that the Minions are apparently immortal also lowers the stakes for the movie, especially during the climax when Stuart and Bob are tied to a pile of dynamite. It’s played up as a big dramatic moment, but since Stuart and Bob would likely survive the explosion, it decreases the tension.
 * 24) The only thing that moves the plot along is a series of contrived coincidences.
 * 25) * The way the Minions receive their trademark overalls is by finding three pairs of overalls on a clothesline, which just happen to be in their size.
 * 26) * The reason the Minions get hired as Scarlet Overkill’s henchmen is because Bob accidentally swallowed the ruby that they had to steal to get the job.
 * 27) * The only reason Bob becomes the King of England is because he happened to pull the Sword out of the Stone to defend himself against a group of policemen.
 * 28) * During the final scene, the Minions meet Gru completely by chance, as he showed up to steal the crown from Scarlet as the Minions’ victory celebration was going on.
 * 29) Although the animation is great and a noticeable upgrade from the first two movies, the color palette looks washed-out and sometimes unpleasant to look at, especially in contrast to the bright and vibrant colors in mh:greatestmovies:Despicable Me 2.
 * 30) Similar to Cars 2 and Shrek the Third, the movie has no real impact on the Despicable Me franchise, as the events of the movie and the characters introduced are never acknowledged in later movies.
 * 31) The movie can also get surprisingly violent and mean-spirited at times, especially in contrast to the first two movies, which, while they had their dark moments, were overall more lighthearted.
 * 32) * There are a ton of casual deaths throughout the movie, particularly during the montage of the Minions’ previous bosses.
 * 33) * After the Minions betray Scarlet Overkill, she locks them up in a dungeon where they are subject to numerous forms of torture, including a hanging scene.
 * 34) The film tries to have a 1960's aesthetic, but this isn't fleshed out well enough to justify the story taking place in that era. Like when the minions pass the Statue of Liberty, it is shown with the gold plated torch flame. In 1968 the Statue of liberty had a torch that was made of yellow glass panes held in place by a metal lattice. The gold plated flame was installed in 1986 as part of a major restoration of the statue.
 * 35) * Additionally, the decision to set the movie in 1968 is confusing for a children’s movie released in 2015: Both the kids who saw this and their parents would be too young to understand some of the references, with only the grandparents being able to understand most of them. Pretty much the only reason the movie takes place in this time period is so the Minions meet Gru when he is a child.
 * 36) It completely contradicts previously established lore in the franchise; in the first mh:greatestmovies:Despicable Me film, you could clearly see a blueprint for a Minion, implying that Gru and Dr. Nefario manufactured and created them himself. But here, it appears that they've been on Earth since start of the history during the beginning, around for a long amount of time and Gru just so happens to find them.
 * 37) * This in itself holds unfortunate implications, with a common joke online being that if the Minions hadn’t hidden in Antarctica during the 19th and early 20th centuries, they likely would’ve served Hitler during World War II.
 * 38) * Additionally, the movie manages to change Gru's backstory, too: The flashback scenes in the first two movies imply that years of neglect from his mother and classmates are what drove him to become a villain as an adult, but in this movie it appears that he was always a villain, an issue that would carry over to mh:greatestmovies:Despicable Me 3 and Minions: The Rise of Gru.
 * 39) The gadgets with the Minions use almost barely get any real screen-time, and they feel shoved in there to sell more toys with the gadgets.
 * 40) * Similarly, the whole reason the movie was a historical film was probably only to sell toys of the Minions in different costumes.
 * 41) The movie literally stops being a movie near the end and becomes a random montage of Minions doing things until the clichéd finale.
 * 42) The movie has too many sub-plots that goes nowhere.
 * 43) The movie feels the need to have the Minions sing a random musical number every 15 or so minutes that adds nothing to the plot.
 * 44) * The very first thing you hear is the Minions singing the Universal theme.
 * 45) * When a group of Yetis enter the Minions’ cave, the Minions assume that they are their new boss and try to win their hearts… by singing “Make ‘Em Laugh” from Singin’ in the Rain.
 * 46) * As mentioned earlier, the scene where the Minions and the London guards dance to “Hair” (from the musical of the same name).
 * 47) * As Scarlet Overkill escorts the Minions to the torture chamber, they sing the theme to The Monkees.
 * 48) * At the end, there’s an unnecessary post-credits scene of the Minions singing "Revolution" (performed by The Beatles) and the entire cast of the movie just dancing along with them, which drags on for two and a half minutes. This was likely only done to push the movie to 91 minutes.
 * 49) Several instances of re-used assets or backgrounds, such as:
 * 50) * The mall being re-used from mh:greatestmovies:Despicable Me 2.
 * 51) ** Additionally, one of the mannequins in the mall is just a re-textured version of Lucy Wilde’s model from Despicable Me 2, which is particularly egregious since she’s one of the main characters in the second and third movie, and likely wouldn’t have even been born yet when this movie takes place.
 * 52) * The alley in New York would also be reused for mh:greatestmovies:The Secret Life of Pets as well.
 * 53) Similar to how Shrek the Third, Cars 2, and Mh:awfulmovies:Ice Age: Collision Course negatively affected their respective franchises, this movie damaged the reputation of both the Despicable Me franchise and Illumination as a whole. Even though this movie was a box office success, making more than $1 billion at the box office, this movie is a major reason why both the Minions and Illumination are so hated nowadays, to the point that some people who enjoyed the first two movies became critical of them after this movie came out.

Banana Qualities

 * 1) The animation is great, which is a nice step-up for the Despicable Me franchise.
 * 2) * The movie experiments with other animation styles in a couple scenes: The opening credits are done in stylized 2-D animation, and when Scarlet Overkill tells the Minions the story of the Three Little Pigs, the animation resembles stop-motion.
 * 3) Sandra Bullock is great as Scarlet Overkill. Same can also be said for Jon Hamm as Herb Overkill.
 * 4) Some funny moments here and there.
 * 5) The score by Heitor Pereira is decent, and, the soundtrack includes classic 60's songs by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
 * 6) Some great moments here and there:
 * 7) *One scene involving a super-villain family is shown, which is easily the best scene in the movie and is the only real impressive part of the experience.
 * 8) *At the end of the film where Gru shows up at the end is nothing short of awesome, and, when the other Minions followed Gru, Bob give a crown from his teddy bear to Scarlet. Which is very heartwarming.
 * 9) The concept of a prequel that reveals where the Minions came from is interesting, even though it is executed poorly and probably would’ve worked better as a short film.

Critical response
Minions' response was mixed reviews from critics, audiences and fans alike: some praised the comedic aspects of the film and the vocal performances of Bullock and Hamm, while also saying they felt that the title characters were not able to carry the film on their own, and that the villains were flatly characterized. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film currently holds a 55% rating based on 216 reviews. The critic consensus reads: "The Minions' brightly colored brand of gibberish-fueled insanity stretches to feature length in their self-titled Despicable Me spinoff, with uneven but often hilarious results." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 56 out of 100, based on 35 critics indicating "mixed or average reviews." On CinemaScore, the film polled an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale. IMDb has an average rating of 6.4/10, and Letterboxd has an average rating of 2.4/5.

Box office
The film grossed $336 million in North America and $823.4 million in other territories for a worldwide total of over $1.159 billion. It was a huge box office success, and is the most successful movie in the entire franchise. At the time, this was the second highest grossing animated movie of all time.

Trivia

 * The first teaser of this film is seen towards the ending credits of Despicable Me 2, where three minions are auditioning for this film. Although the audition features the same three minions, they have changed slightly since their first appearance. Bob's eye color is more obvious in this film compared to the teaser, for instance.
 * One of Scarlet's paint collections is Andy Warhol's "Campbell's Soup Cans". There are 32 of these paintings. Each of them features a different flavor. The one Scarlet has in her collection is the Tomato Soup, which debuted in 1897 by the Campbell Soup Company. The company is still making this soup. Warhol first exhibited these 32 paintings in 1962. Given the movie its set in 1968, it fits into the movie's timeline. These 32 paintings are now a part of New York City's Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection.

Trailers
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Reviews, Rants, and Top 10s
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