Minions movie review: This one is for kids

The charm and humor they brought in tiny doses in the previous films now comes in a massive blast that wears thin quickly. There is such great attention to detail when the minions are exploring, whether it is a Richard Nixon billboard or the minions being fascinated by a television.

The Minions really are cute for about 20 minutes before they begin to get repetitive. From political posters in the background to nods to famous albums of that decade to a soundtrack of music that 60s fans will love, the filmmakers seemingly understand that a lot of grown-ups will be seeing this movie (alongside their children and grandchildren) and they aim to please the adult crowd with a few inside winks and references that kids won’t be able to appreciate for years. Hilariously, the film takes this concept to the hilt as the history of the Minions is presented, right from the beginning of their time when they were formed in nature and have ever since been on the lookout for a super villain boss so that they could be his henchmen. After Scarlett Overkill puts up a game of stealing a diamond from her hand to become her recruit, Bob gets it and swallows the diamond leaving his teddy in her hand, and they ultimately win! The Minions run into problems, including trying to steal the Queen of England’s crown, and more. Between the heist by the banana-colored trio and Scarlet’s laments about not being appreciated, the film falls into a funk. It is not as amusing, nor as inventive as one would like, but it does have its moments. It is now up to three unlikely heroes to pull off the impossible in order to secure a future for all the Minions of the world. There needed to be more Stooges and less “Affair”.

The voices of the star cast are equally vigorous and dynamic. However, there are other times when a spinoff goes horribly wrong (i.e. “Friends” and its failed “Joey” experiment). There are plenty of British actors who could have handled the role much better.

The minions are finally getting their very own movie and, as they proved already in the Despicable Me films, they are highly musical creatures.

In the end, the animation was on par with what you would expect from Illumination Entertainment and the Minion-centric story was pretty fun and well written for the most part.

You might think that the lack of one particular front-and-center Minion as a lead character (instead, the focus is either on a small army of gibberish-spouting Cheese Curls or just the three volunteers) would be a major detriment to audience involvement.

There will also be huge Minions giveaways and much more fun. This includes the dinosaurs and pre-historic man. Then over a period of time, the narration continues to tell us about how the Minions served the Egyptians, Dracula and other historic characters.

TURAN: The plotting in “Minions” is not its strong point.