Minions & Monsters Review: Long Live the Movies

The Minions are back – and better than ever – in Minions & Monsters, a lovingly constructed and vibrant tribute to all things cinema.

In Minions & Monsters, director Pierre Coffin reminds us of this enduring truth and celebrates the history of cinema. The seventh installment in the Despicable Me franchise is a lovingly constructed tribute to the most incredible form of artistic expression there is.

Maybe we’re over the Despicable Me and Minions IP. Maybe a franchise that has been going on for sixteen years and instantly became a profitable commodity for Universal should take a bit of a rest before coming back strong. Maybe Minions: The Rise of Gru saturated our enjoyment of these lovable yellow characters because of a disruptive TikTok movement that ironically made it one of 2022’s highest-grossing films. All of these claims are valid. But I’m here to tell you all that Minions & Monsters is unlike the previous installments of the series, and is far more intelligent and playful than you might think. It’s not only the best entry in the Minions trilogy, but the best Despicable Me movie yet.

Sometimes, the references to older cinema might be a bit too on-the-nose. The movie opens with a succession of clips from the first-ever motion pictures – Eadward Muybridge’s The Horse in Motion, the Lumière brothers’ The Arrival of a Train, or Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon – but adds Minions into the mix. However, there isn’t a moment where the act of celebrating the legacy of cinema, and introducing a younger moviegoing public to the figures that shaped the medium, doesn’t feel sincere. It’s the main reason why the film works so well, despite its obvious flaws.

Coffin once again tracks the Minions on their quest to serve an evil boss, and unsuccessfully so, until they accidentally stumble upon a movie set and completely destroy it. This vehemently angers director Max (Christoph Waltz) but pleases studio heads Frank and Elwood Bright (Jeff Bridges), who see money signs all over the Minions and plaster them in every single one of their films. For a while, this works, until the arrival of sound. As everyone knows, none of the Minions speak English and tank the Bright Brothers’ productions with their endless gibberish. Coffin has fun riffing on some of the greatest sequences in film history, including a recreation of the famous “Rosebud” bit from Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane that likely had the loudest laugh in the auditorium from this critic, while the children looked perplexed at why the adults in the room were laughing.

Maybe that’s why the movie has struck a chord with cinema aficionados, and hasn’t fully resonated with the general public, despite the Minions still bringing incredible commercial value to Universal. The thing is, when you stage an entire chase scene that morphs from John Ford-esque vistas to tributes from the greatest-ever burlesque pictures – Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, Charles Reisner and Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill, Jr. and Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor’s Safety Last! – there’s no doubt anyone with a passing knowledge of cinema history will not watch this impeccably-mounted setpiece grinning ear-to-ear.

Such a sequence could’ve been egregious key-jangling. Lord knows this franchise has been a victim of this in the past. But it’s done with so much reverence to what made the movies stand the test of time that it’s hard to be cynical about such an artistic statement, especially in the artless era of AI slop we live in now.

It’s interesting to see that Illumination has always been at the forefront of the crusade against AI and has kept advocating that the best acts of creation always come from humans, first and foremost. Minions & Monsters acts as a reminder of that, especially when it goes through the legacy of how human creativity has evolved cinema from its primitive beginnings to the more visual-effects-heavy landscape we know today. Whenever Minions & Monsters focuses on minions James (Pierre Coffin) and Henry (Pierre Coffin) making a monster movie and utilizing equipment at their disposal to make this dream come true, it’s hard not to feel the passion that brims in every frame, especially when staging a climax worthy of Byron Haskin’s The War of the Worlds meets Robert Wise’s The Day The Earth Stood Still.

However, when attempting to create a monster story around the minions, after James and Henry summon a Cthulhu-esque creature named Goomie (Trey Parker), the movie begins to fall into predictable territory. Goomie attempts to trick the minions into awakening two H.P. Lovecraft-inspired monsters for their movie, while he has ulterior motives to destroy the world as soon as the cameras start rolling. It isn’t particularly inspiring, nor does it make the stakes feel terribly urgent. Digressions with alien robot Dort (Jesse Eisenberg) also don’t help the second half’s pace flow as naturally as when Coffin gleefully celebrates the act of creation, especially when it attempts to force a love interest, suffragette Mary (Zoey Deutch), into the proceedings.

That said, it’s hard not to appreciate what’s on screen, even with some missteps along the way. Many will remember Minions & Monsters as one of the most vibrant and lively tributes to cinema we’ve seen since Steven Spielberg reminded all of us that “Movies are dreams that you never forget.”  Moreover, and most importantly, it will also act as a gateway to the treasures of the seventh art to a younger public. Though they might not understand all the references upon watching this film for the first time, they will likely have a curiosity to seek out what Coffin alludes to over the course of the film. There isn’t a bigger victory than this, because the kid that’s watching Minions & Monsters in cinemas might become the next Spielberg, provided they know where the horizon is…

Minions & Monsters is now available to watch in US theaters, in UK & Irish cinemas, and globally in theatres. Read our review of Despicable Me 4.