Film Review: MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU (2022): The Minions are Back in a Wild but Silly Story Set in the 1970’s

Minions: The Rise of Gru Review

Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) Film Review, a movie directed by Kyle Balda, Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val and written by Matthew Fogel and Brian Lynch and starring Steve Carell, Michelle Yeoh, Alan Arkin, Pierre Coffin, Taraji P. Henson, Julie Andrews, Russell Brand, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Danny Trejo, Lucy Lawless, Jimmy O. Yang, Kevin Michael Richardson, John DiMaggio, RZA, Steve Coogan, Will Arnett and Michael Beattie.

Minions: The Rise of Gru is a bright, colorful, noisy, zany mess. It’s attractive to watch at times but there’s too much and too little going on at the same time. For one, there are way too many interesting characters and not enough screen time to adequately deal with them all. So, what we’re left with is a lot of screen time focused on the little yellow minions who really aren’t that interesting, to be honest. They speak in incoherent nonsensical ways that seem to make sense at times if you pay close attention but, really, who cares about them when you have the “Vicious 6” characters? These properly named bad guys are 1970’s villains that just aren’t given their proper due in this rather jumbled animated picture.

At the film’s beginning, we are introduced to some of the most clever antagonists ever conceived, including Belle Bottom (voice of Taraji P. Henson), Nun-Chuck (Lucy Lawless), Jean Clawed (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and Wild Knuckles (Alan Arkin). These are ingenious names and we can’t wait to see the movie use them to its advantage but it’s ultimately a no-go. Instead, the movie focuses on Gru (voice of Steve Carell) and his attempts to become one of the “vicious” crew to no avail. And, Gru has those pesky minions with him which further detract from what could have been a great premise had no minions been involved. But, this is a minion movie so we have to take what it gives us as audience members. Oh, well.

Gru and the minions have their moments. Gru and his crew go see Jaws in the movie theater and set off a stink bomb to clear the theater so they can watch it by themselves. Hysterical. This film even has an opening credits scene which pays homage to the titles of the James Bond pictures. Pretty clever. Gru gets the news that he is going to be interviewed for a position with the vicious crew from a self-destructing message which comes across the way Princess Leia first communicated to Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars from 1977. Genius.

This film gets bogged down in inane sequences such as the one where the minions take over an aircraft and fly it in a haphazard way. It’s funny to see a minion offer passengers one peanut instead of a bag but when the plane ends up being driven carelessly, it’s not too humorous. Then, there is a chase sequence on a San Francisco hill with the minions which is conventional and lame despite some nice colorful background scenery.

Michelle Yeoh voices a character called Master Chow and her part is the most fun in the movie. She plays a kung fu instructor who reluctantly takes on helping the minions learn the craft she teaches. Yeoh is a master of the art of acting and creates vocals for Master Chow that are definitely the highlight of the movie. If you’ve seen her in Everything Everywhere All at Once, you will respect this performance.

You see, Gru gets kidnapped and the minions must rescue him so learning kung fu could help the yellow guys defend themselves. At one point early on, though, the movie gets nastily frightening. Gru is tied to a spinning record with a saw nearby that is supposed to possibly cut into him. We know Gru probably won’t get killed but this is rather scary to present to kids, no?

Gru and the Minions (voiced by Pierre Coffin) have always been characters that are an acquired taste that mainly kids can adapt to. They aren’t my favorite animated characters but I chuckled here and there at their antics. I haven’t mentioned much of the Vicious 6. That’s the biggest problem with the movie. The movie doesn’t focus nearly enough on them. Besides Arkin’s Wild Knuckles, the movie under uses the rest of the “vicious” pack and the result is a mediocre underachiever of a picture as a result.

While it’s nice to hear the likes of Julie Andrews as Gru’s mother, it feels like Andrews’ talents could be better served elsewhere. Perhaps in another Princess Diaries movie. There’s nothing really bad about the new Minions picture which is the fifth movie to feature the yellow misfits. However, with original and creative villains like the ones the movie introduces, I expected more. You could imagine this movie being pitched to people who probably grew up in the 1970’s or were born in that decade and the imagination behind the characters is definitely inventive and terrific. Too bad the movie abandons them for the most part in order to focus on the minions. We’ve seen the minions before and we’ll probably see them again. I’m not so sure we’ll get to see much of the Vicious 6 again and that’s a shame.

Rating: 5.5/10

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