MINIONS & MONSTERS Review: Sentimental Love Letter to Cinema Goes Awry in Routine Second Half

The seventh installment in the Despicable Me franchise and third installment in the Minions prequel series would seemingly have little to offer above and beyond what the numerous installments in the Illumination franchise have produced to date.

But, at least for its first half, Minions & Monsters does something decidedly different with the little yellow mischief makers, resulting in a sentimental love letter to classic Hollywood amidst a fun, albeit routine, family film.

Taking place in 1920, Minions & Monsters follows the Minions (voiced by Pierre Coffin, who also directs and co-writes the film) as they embark on quest after quest to find a new evil boss to serve. Inadvertently, the Minions stumble into Hollywood and quickly become massive stars in the film industry. But when the changing landscape of Old Hollywood affects their viability as performers, Minions James and Henry aim to make a monster movie of their own.

Coffin’s film is a tale of two halves, the first of which proves far more unique and absorbing than the second. The story begins with a focus on James, a Minion less interested in finding another evil boss to serve and more interested in telling stories. Ostracized by the other Minions, James eventually finds a friend in fellow Minion Henry and together the two become the beating heart of the film.

The two Minions, in particular James, make for surprisingly compelling protagonists. James is essentially the Minions version of Sammy Fabelman, an aspiring storyteller with dreams and visions far bigger than the world he inhabits. Henry, meanwhile, is James’ loyal companion, a supportive best friend who finds joy in traits the other Minions find annoying.

Minions & Monsters quickly propels through a prologue before bringing the Minions face-to-face with the film industry. From there, Coffin’s film is filled to the brim with homages and references to Old Hollywood, whether that be a montage of the Minions acting in Citizen Kane to the famous clip of a house crashing around Buster Keaton in the silent film Steamboat Bill, Jr.

Through the eyes of James and Henry, the audience is given the opportunity to re-experience what it was like to see a movie for the first time. That almost indescribable feeling of immersing oneself in a story completely different from one’s own is felt palpably in a film committed to showing the magic of moviemaking and storytelling.

In operating as such an unabashed love letter to cinema, Minions & Monsters stands apart from other family-oriented animated films. Investment in James, Henry, and the other Minions’ careers in Hollywood comes easily and facilitates a story that resembles The Fabelmans and The Artist more than the average Illumination movie.

Disappointingly, Minions & Monsters takes a rather hard pivot around its halfway mark that results in the film largely losing what made it so unique and compelling in the first place. As the Minions are forced to reckon with the transition from silent movies to talkies, the story bifurcates and switches scene-by-scene between James and Henry pursuing a real-life monster to make their monster movie with and a bizarre, ill-fitting story involving an alien robot named Dort, voiced by Jesse Eisenberg.

While the strand focusing on James and Henry features a funny voice performance from Trey Parker as the deceptive Cthulhu-esque monster Goomi (who Parker voices eerily similar to Saddam Hussein in South Park), the story drifts away from the love letter to Old Hollywood filled with classic movie references and shining brightly with its reverence for cinema. In its place, Minions & Monsters becomes yet another engaging and somewhat hollow animated film backed by a generic story.

The narrative involving the other Minions and Eisenberg’s Dort, meanwhile, feels completely out of place in Coffin’s film. Dort, who is a parody and homage to Gort from the 1951 classic The Day the Earth Stood Still, is intent on taking over the world when he falls in love with Debbie (Zoey Deutch), a strong-willed suffragette. The romance is paper thin, the humor doesn’t land, and the new characters’ primary purpose is to bring some resolution to the other strand of the narrative come the end of the film.

Unlike recent animated Pixar animated films like Toy Story 5 and Hoppers, Minions & Monsters doesn’t aim for much emotional depth to its story or characters. This is fine, however, as the film forges a unique identity at the intersection of family animated entertainment and wholesome love letter to cinema.

Unfortunately, Coffin’s film loses this identity around the halfway mark, devolving into a movie that capitalizes on the chaotic nature of the titular mischief makers but does little else to warrant sticking around.

The film opens July 1, only in movie theaters, courtesy of Universal Pictures. Visit the official site for locations and showtimes.