Tuesday, December 8, 2015

On the Cutting Room Floor: MinionsMania is Running Mild

Comic relief is an integral part of most narratives. It relieves tension and gives the audience a break to soak in important plot points and information. Sometimes, comic relief can take the form of a character, or in this case characters. As par for the course, these comic relief characters often become the standout stars of their respective movies. The Penguins from Madagascar, Shrek's Puss in Boots and the Minions of Despicable Me are just a few of these standouts that come to mind.

Since movie studios equate these characters' popularity to the success of their respective movies, standalone movies are made for them in order to capitalize on this supposed market. Sadly, the truth is these comic-relief characters just don't have the depth to hold people's attention for the length of a featured film. While the charming denim-wearing yellow Minions from the Despicable Me films may have the marketability, they fall under the same shortcomings.

Minions follows these titular creatures on their quest to find the evilest being on Earth to be their boss. Unfortunately, the Minions are unable keep one because their oblivious stupidity results in their boss' death. Sounds great, right? In actuality, only a small fraction of Minions is spent on the humourous dispatching of former bosses (much of which is already given away in the trailers).

The majority of Minions is spent jumping from one set piece to another without any intention on telling a satisfying story or developing the Minions as anything more than incompetent. Even the antagonists of the movie, Scarlet and Herb Overkill (Sandra Bullock and Jon Hamm respectively), are an afterthought since they never amount to anything other than being the wacky psychopaths that are somehow more incompetent than the Minions.

How you enjoy the comedy of Minions will make or break the film for you. For me personally, there are some legitimate laughs in this movie; they just were few and far between. The kids in the screening with me ate up every word of gibberish and fart joke in the movie. For me, much of the comedy felt too childish to keep all ages laughing throughout.

Although it seems like I have been picking on Minions a whole lot, I believe it would have been better suited as a short film or weekly television series. There is some good material hidden in the movie; it is just stretched too thin in order to fill 90 minutes. Unfortunately, a movie will generate more money than a short film or TV show ever would.

As it stands, Minions doesn't have the heart or depth to stand on its own. While I don't recommend going out of your way to see it, Minions is a fine movie if you have nothing else to watch on Netflix.

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