Minions: The Rise of Gru Review

Here’s my Minions: The Rise of Gru review which opens June 29 and featuring the voices of Steve Carell, Pierre Coffin as the Minions, along with Taraji P. Henson, Michelle Yeoh, RZA, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Lucy Lawless, Dolph Lundgren, Danny Trejo, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews, and Alan Arkin.

The Minions are back and they are now officially working for “miniboss” Gru who they first met at the end of the first Minion movies.

I liked how they portioned this movie with equal screen time for Gru and his misadventures and the three main minion characters namely Kevin, Bob and Stuart with the additional scenes for Otto.

So the short story here is that the famous Vicious 6 supervillain gang has kicked off the elderly Wild Knuckle and opens a spot for the team. Gru ditches the help of the Minions in order to try out and when he gets embarrassed by the Vicious 6, he steals their latest loot, an ancient medallion that can give the gang superpowers. Wild Knuckle kidnaps Gru for information and brings him to San Francisco with the Minions following suit to save “mini boss”.

The movie was fun and I really thought it would be just utter silliness all throughout the 1 hour and 30 minute run time but its not super shallow.

I love the music that gets played throughout the film with a mix of super classics to a little more modern ones.

There’s a lot of gags here that will make your kids giggle with delight, hell even some adults were laughing hard at some of the scenes. I had some fun here.

There are a lot of “reaches” here in the film but thats totally ok. Kids wouldn’t really care about those kinds of things.

I did love the crazy concept that went into the creation of the Vicious 6 although its sad that they had so much star power and most of them didn’t really get a mouthful of lines in the movie. I really wish that classic action stars Jean Claud Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren didn’t get a lot of action. And I really wish they had a reference to the film “Universal Soldier” but that’s just me. Notable performances here though obviously go to Alan Arkin and Taraji P. Henson playing Wild Knuckle and Belle Bottom respectively. Arkin was perfectly cast as a curmudgeon Knuckle who strikes up a beautiful friendship with the impressionable Gru.

A little disappointed with Michelle Yeoh’s appearance and Julie Andrew’s appearance too. I feel like they squandered the casting with only a few lines in the film but I kind of understand that it was pretty much the paycheck for them. Mad respect for the hustle.

There’s also that one visual gag with Nun-Chuck that I LOL’ed hard at.

Verdict: 9/10

Giving a good score because my kid loved the movie and wanted to see it again when it opens in regular theaters starting today, June 29. Special thanks to Universal Pictures PH and SM Cinemas for the invite!

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