Minions and Monsters is a love letter to silent cinema.
Minions and Monsters is, unironically, a modern-day kaiju classic (no, for real)
Minions and monsters is the film that Martin Scorsese wanted to make Hugo. Come to think of it, Minions and monsters is the film that Damien Chazelle wanted to make with Babylon. It’s unironically one of the best films EVER made about silent-era Hollywood and is almost guaranteed to be the only PG-rated children’s film you see this year with an honest-to-God beheading scene.
It’s truly astonishing how subversive this film is. It’s basically a secret allegory for the whole Despicable Me franchise, with the film’s current director (Pierre Coffin) introduced as a self-insert character named Max. This is TOTALLY a movie made for adults disguised as a goofy cartoon for elementary school kids. With all its references to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, The battleship Potemkin, Citizen Kane And A trip to the Moonit’s an unapologetic romance movie that should go over the head of anyone watching it under 10 (or even under 30, for that matter.) Like, they even managed to insert the word “bastard” into one scene and you KNOW the filmmakers had to fight like crazy with the studio to keep it in there.
This is obviously a film made for a literate audience. I mean, the two main Minions are named Henry and James – do I even have to connect the dots for you? Furthermore, Minions and Monsters is a bit of a doubly inverted parody of Minions formulaic, with a meta-narrative that pokes fun at commercialization, fan culture, and the inherent hypocrisy of Hollywood as a whole. And best of all… it’s LITERALLY a Lovecraftian cosmic horror film, featuring the world’s most adorable portrayal of Cthulhu (voiced by Trey Parker from South Park glory, because why not?)
It’s actually a three-way story here, with a wraparound story set in modern times (no spoilers, but it does include an appearance by George Lucas.) The film rejects established Minion lore and indicates that SOME Minions managed to avoid being stranded in Antarctica from 1812 to 1968 (a rather brilliant way of explaining how and why the Minions, who are canonically looking for the most evil leader they can find, never joined the Confederacy or allied with Hitler.) Now set in the 1920s, a faction of Minions led by the aforementioned Henry and James seeks to use some good old sorcery to bring REAL monsters to the sets of their kaiju movies while another faction of Minions align themselves with the world’s premier cosplayer… who is either a REAL robotic overlord hell-bent on conquering the planet or just a dumb dude who still lives in a dingy apartment with someone who may or may not be his. the downlow boyfriend. Or his father. Or his brother. Or just a platonic roommate. Honestly, the film leaves this part of the film a little vague.
Naturally, we won’t have to wait long to receive tributes to Jawsa subplot about Minions who unwittingly become icons of women’s suffrage and gigantic alien monsters who struggle to transition from true world destroyers to Hollywood stars. It’s a LOT of stuff for a film that’s barely 80 minutes long, but for the most part the filmmakers manage to fit it all in and, more incredibly, make it all make sense and surprisingly fascinating.
Certainly, some elements of the film are weaker than others. There’s a burgeoning romantic subplot that seems entirely superfluous and the film somehow reveals its “twist” a little too early. But you really can’t complain too much about the holistic package, especially when it culminates in a massive blob of Lovecraftian eyeballs threatening to devour all of existence under the guise of a DW Griffith-style epic. The apocalyptic grand finale is just about the best possible cinematic adaptation of the old arcade game. Carnage we could ever hope for, and just when you think you have this movie figured out, it hits you with one final twist that I really didn’t see coming.
It’s quite easy to be jaded by modern Hollywood productions. But Minions and monsters is one of those happy exceptions which prove that multi-billion dollar conglomerates can always give us bread and circuses entertaining and fun when they put in minimal effort. I feel like Groucho Marx would have loved this movie – as would Hollywood Babylon the writer Kenneth Anger.
It may be a bit of an exaggeration to describe this film as Singing in the rain for the Alpha generation. But there is a lot more in common between the two films than one might think. to want believe. All I know is that I enjoyed this movie immensely – that’s about it Disclosure day promised, only Minions and monsters the book actually.
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