Minions: The Rise of Gru
Year: 2022
Rating: PG
Length: 87 minutes / 1.45 hours
It always felt weird to me that the prequel spinoff series to Despicable Me started with Minions (2015), set well before these yellow tic-tac creatures even met their eventual boss. As a true prequel to the main series, Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) was the movie the previous Minions movie should have been. And while it definitely lives up to the somewhat immature nature of these films from Illumination, I am constantly in awe of how visually impressive these movies look despite not coming from Disney, Pixar, or Dreamworks.
While definitely still geared toward children, Minions: The Rise of Gru definitely has its moments that parents forced to watch along with their kids will chuckle at. In particular, the names of the villains are puns well above little ones’ heads but are quite amusing for the adults who know (Nun-Chuck (Lucy Lawless) being my favorite). I mean, they even got Jean-Claude Van Damme to voice Jean-Clawed. It’s goofy, and you can turn your mind off to enjoy the flashy colors for almost an hour and a half.
My only gripe is that this movie didn’t quite integrate its A and B storylines that well. Sure, they come together at the end to save the day, but they might as well have been two separate movies: one where the Minions train and one where Gru (Steve Carell) is mentored by Wild Knuckles (Alan Arkin). Still, as far as origin stories go, there are enough references to the main Despicable Me series to explain how everything got started prior to the first Despicable Me (2010) movie. I only hope that this movie marks the end of the Minions spin-off series since there’s really nowhere else to go with it now.
The Despicable Me prequel the first Minions movie should have been, I give Minions: The Rise of Gru 3.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
