Title: Minions: The Rise of Gru
MPAA Rating: PG
Directors: Kyle Balda, Brad Ableson, Jonathan del Val
Starring: Steve Carell, Pierre Coffin, Alan Arkin
Runtime: 1 hr 27 mins

What It Is: We get to explore 12-year-old Gru (Carell) as he longs to live his dreams as a part of the most dastardly group of villains around. When they betray their former leader they’re looking to expand and grow Gru sees this as the perfect opportunity to make his dream come true. But he has something they want and they’ll do anything they have to in order to get it back.

What We Think: It took three people to direct this. That’s the thing I cannot fathom. Insofar as animated films in 2022 go this is one that exists and its purpose is soul-sucking profits. The minions are a cash cow for Illumination but an annoyance for anyone above kindergarten age, or anyone that isn’t that one aunt obsessed with these moldy bananas. It’s the same ole same ole visually. It’s a style I think went sour milk around the second Despicable Me. There’s nothing you can take away from this film. Not even fun. When an animated film is supposed to be fun and isn’t that’s cinema’s greatest crime. It’s also inexcusable.

Our Grade: D, Some of the visual gags work but it’s a small fraction. There’s nothing here but shallow commercialism. A reason to put the minions in another movie in order to continue to sell more toys come Christmas time. This is the dark side of animation. The sith power that Darth Disney uncovered decades ago. I can’t recommend the movie because I have no understanding, idea, nor care why it was made. I don’t know who it was made for. I’m perplexed. Perplexed by the artists who spent their hard-earned time on this film so Illumination could do nothing with this piece of garbage. They deserve better, we deserve better, YOU deserve better.