Minions & Monsters is predictably chaotic, and it’s filled with plenty of movie references that the tots will miss and (some) parents will catch. The film also comes with slapstick violence, Minion nudity, a single use of “b–tard” and a plot based around conjuring deadly monsters imprisoned in a magical tome.
By now, most know the Minions’ shtick: Wherever there’s a villain, they live to serve.
It only makes sense they’d eventually start working for Hollywood executives.
It takes some time to make their way to California. Over the years (and the Minions have a lot of years under their collective belts), the Minions have saddled up next to plenty of big bads: a Cyclops who crushes buildings for fun; a short-lived excursion with a mummy; a spell-casting warlock whose plot device—er, book of magic—will be important later, so remember that.
But now, it’s the 1920s, and the Minions have become movie stars in the era of silent film. If they’re in a movie, it sells out. Everyone finds the Minions hilarious. Nothing could possibly halt their continued fame.
Well, until Hollywood introduces sound to its movies. And as fun as the Minions are to watch, they aren’t the most fluent of English speakers. Unable to deliver lines, they’re fired and thrown to the curb. Most of the Minions resign themselves to finding their next villain.
But a few Minions aren’t quite ready to throw in the towel.
James has always loved storytelling more than scoundrels, and he feels like he was made for the movies. So he decides to produce his own flick—a city-stomping giant monster flick. Alongside his Minion friends Henry and Ed, they rush to their friend, a human director named Max, to show him their script.
He loves it, telling them they have something big on their hands. Then he starts asking questions.
“And what are you going to use for your monster?”
Uh …
Max kindly reminds the Minions that city-stomping giant monster movies, well, they kinda need a giant monster. But it’s the 1920s, and one can’t simply CGI a terrifying creature for the film. They’ll need movie magic to get this one done.
Movie magic? Oh, the Minions can do more than that.
Ed remembers that villainous warlock they once served (before they accidentally vaporized him). He pulls out the warlock’s spellbook—the one containing all sorts of incantations that conjure massive, dangerous monsters.
Hey, what could go wrong?
James, Henry and Ed maintain a steadfast friendship throughout the film; while the rest of the Minions abandon James’ plan for a movie, Henry and Ed resolve to help the little yellow henchman. They travel to faraway lands to obtain the monsters James needs for his movie and endure biting cold and shark attacks. But Henry’s not blind to the dangers, and he wisely begins having second thoughts about the whole “working with man-eating monsters” thing. And when James recognizes they’ve been tricked, he abandons his project to save Henry.
As for the other Minions, once things move to a world-threatening scale, the Minions rally together to fight these would-be destroyers.
It should be noted that, while these creatures keep close to villains, they seem hesitant to intentionally do harm unless threatened. When they see a Minion-piloted derailed train careening towards a mother and her baby, they work together to tilt the locomotive enough to avoid turning the PG film into an R-rating horror. They do their best to avoid a number of other civilians in that same scene, as well. (Nevertheless, their antics do end the lives of plenty of their villain masters, which some may still see as a positive.)
Max encourages James in the art of moviemaking, telling the Minion he’s got a gift for it. And when James goes to Max to tell him that he plans to make an indie film, Max gives James a video camera to get him started.
“I believe in you, James,” Max says. “I know you’ll do great.”
While henching for a warlock, the villain sets down his book of spells. It’s filled with drawings of monsters as well as cryptic writing on how to summon (and unsummon) each monster. Later in the film, we also see it has some other, non-summoning magic, too, including opening portals and removing a man’s clothes (more on that later).
One Minion decides to summon a bunny monster whose laser eyes cause chaos. And later, when the Minions need a kaiju for their monster movie, they turn to the book. After setting up candles and making a summoning circle on the ground, the Minions chant an incantation, and green smoke rises out of the circle, revealing a monster named Goomi (who comes across as the pipsqueak, chew-toy version of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu). Goomi leads the Minions to a couple of other, larger monsters frozen in ice—named Howard and Phillip, obviously after Mister H.P. himself. Later, Goomi uses the book to summon Irene, a massive orange blob monster covered in eyes nicknamed the Devourer of Worlds.
After coming up with his movie idea, James shouts out “Glory, Hallelujah!”
As with other Minions movies, viewers can be sure they’ll see a naked Minion rear or two. Likewise, a Minion pulls down a monster’s grass skirt, leaving him naked. He’s got no frontal anatomy, but when he later gets stuck with his rear in the air, the Minion spanks the monster on its visible rear many times. (The same monster, obviously male, wears a bra-like “top” featuring a couple of scallop shells, a la The Little Mermaid.) In a scene during the closing credits, the Minions cast a spell that removes Gru’s clothes, and he covers himself as he runs offscreen. One Minion loses his clothes, revealing a green sparkling thong. Minions run into a man standing in his boxers.
Two Minions slurp on opposite ends of spaghetti and accidentally kiss. While filming a detective story, a Minion takes the female actor into his arms and prepares to kiss her (but fails to properly read his line, pausing the scene).
Minions & Monsters references plenty of films, from silent movies to modern-day flicks. One of these is a sly reference to the R-rated, sexually depraved Babylon—specifically a chaotic party scene, complete with an elephant. We didn’t catch anything crude in the scene itself, but the reference remains.
We receive a montage of previous villains the Minions have unintentionally killed or injured. The first is a cyclops, who, after getting a LEGO-like brick stuck in his foot, falls backwards onto a spiked mace and burns his head in fire. Then he accidentally sits down on another set of building blocks, which appears to go up the monster’s rectum. This causes the monster to fall down a hill and into spiky rocks. We later see the cyclops in a full body cast and wheelchair.
Other villains and monsters meet similar fates: a mummy unravels into a skeleton and falls apart; a pirate is thrown off his ship and eaten by sharks; a Minion loses his grip on his halberd, which decapitates a king onscreen (leaving his neck’s sliced ham-like interior exposed to the camera); a warlock is vaporized by a summoned monster’s laser eyes; a giant panda crushes another man. All of these (even the decapitation) come without blood.
The Minions engage in slapstick violence throughout the film: they send a throwing dart into a man’s rear; they careen through town in a locomotive, forcing people to jump out of the way and narrowly avoiding a number of bystanders; they pummel a wave of actors posing as Vikings with all manner of weapons (including sledgehammers, axes and a chainsaw); they break a man’s hand. Two Minions blow themselves up with dynamite, but they come away merely charred.
Later, giant monsters cause havoc in the city, destroying buildings and vehicles. They state their desire to eat and crush people, but we never actually see them accomplish this mission. And a shark attempts to eat the Minions (and a sea otter), though it gets scared away.
An apparent robot alien encounters a gang of human thugs and—mostly unintentionally—knocks them silly. (One gang member takes a swing at the robot with a pipe, for instance; when the robot ducks, the pipe slams into someone else’s face.)
Cowboys are thrown off horses. Gunfire takes place in what we later learn are movie scenes, and slapstick violence is pervasive.
There’s a single use of “b–tard,” the first true crudity in any Despicable Me or Minions movie. We hear one or two other potential crudities (including what might be “bull’s sack”), but the audio was too muddled for us to be sure. Otherwise, nothing beyond “holy wow.”
Police pour beer out of vats into the city sewer during the Prohibition era. Someone mentions champagne, and another man pops a bottle of it in celebration. Minions drink what looks like champagne in a hot tub. A few Minions drink colored liquids from martini glasses. Another scene features beverages with cherries settled in the bottom of the glass.
An octopus passes gas. When attempting to say “Rosebud,” a Minion instead utters the word “poop.”
There are many disasters we all hope and pray will never come our way: Tornadoes. Hurricanes. Wildfires. Earthquakes. Flash floods.
Be glad, then, and rejoice that we were spared from at least one disaster in this life: Minions.
Anyone who has seen a Despicable Me or Minions movie knows just how much chaos the little henchmen bring—and where one Minion stands, he’s probably causing the collapse of a building or something. The yellow pill-shaped Minionese speakers simply can’t help but turn the chaos up to 11.
And if you caught that my previous sentence was a reference to a classic movie, then you’re in for a treat: Minions & Monsters spends a not-unsubstantial amount of time on references to countless movies that are sure to go over a child’s head. Outside direct homages to the big silent film stars such as Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, references to Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Babylon, Singin’ in the Rain, The Day the Earth Stood Still and many more demand notice.
It’s all cute, but no one goes to a Minions movie for, well, any sort of homage; they go because those devious Illumination executives have discovered the magic formula that gets a nation of children to beg their parents to go to the movies: funny-looking characters that toot and yell “banana.”
As Doctor Strange once put it, “It’s a simple spell, but quite unbreakable.”
And, speaking of magical spells, that’ll be the biggest content change from previous Minions movies. Yes, by now, any fan is well accustomed to seeing the naked rears, the toilet humor, the slapstick violence and the general havoc the Minions cause—and I won’t belabor the point but to say that all that remains in this movie, too.
But added to those elements (alongside a use of the word “b–tard) is a plot-centric conjuration in which the Minions both summon and banish a variety of H.P. Lovecraft-styled monsters using a magical tome—the property of a definitively evil warlock. These creatures have no divine ambitions of being worshipped or anything. They just want to eat and/or crush humanity, functioning more as sentient wild animals with a hankering for rampage than diabolical threats.
Still, the subtext is there; the magic book and the summoning ritual remains, and it’ll be a new element families will need to weigh before they dive into the third movie of this chaotic series.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He’s also an avid cook. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
