Minions: The Entry of Dec (2022) – Movie Review [UIP]. First adventure together

Are there people who don’t like minions?! yes? You, there behind the screen? I invite you to another script, because the fifth film with their participation will not change this situation at all. Brutal but honest.

It’s amazing what little yellow men have done in Illumination studios around the world. They started twelve years ago as the alien minions (“minions”) of the main character Puppy. Perhaps no one expected how much fame they would gain after such a performance. So much so that the second part of the series, which was called “Depicable me 2”, was postponed in our company as “Minions rozrabiaja”. The authors of the Polish version shot their knees a little with this translation, because the next film was called simply “Minions” – here and in the original. This led to an unnecessary mess, because if someone wasn’t familiar with the series, without looking at the yearbooks, they wouldn’t have the slightest idea what movie to follow. The third part of the main series (“Despicable me 3”) was called “Gru, Dru and the Minions”, which made the problem worse. However, if you look at everything from the side, the situation is quite simple. The main series is called “Deeppicable Me” and revolves around the adventures of Gru and his daughters, the previous series, including today’s series, are titled “Minions” with more interest in Kevin, Stewart and Bob. Simple, so why make it so complicated?

Minions: The Entry of Dec (2022) – Movie Review [UIP]. “All my life I’ve just wanted to do terrible things with my friends”

11-year-old Gru loves being a criminal the most in the world. Steal, provoke the weakest, be famous – like any child. His favorite soup is Wściekły Kulak, the leader of “Villainous 6”. Unfortunately, as is often the case among scoundrels, Kochak was betrayed by his own people and never heard of. A great tragedy, but it also means that there is now a vacancy in the “six”. Gru decides to seize the opportunity and join the team. He just needs to get rid of the Minions first, because as useful as they can be, they don’t visually leave the most… an ominous impression.

The plot lazily goes in two directions. On the one hand, we have Gru, who falls into one problem after another, and on the other hand, we honestly rushed him with the help of the Minions. Joining the standard trio this time is Otto – a plump version of Stewart – incredibly naive, even for a Minion, but very loyal at the same time. His adventure in recovering a precious artifact is as cute as it is fun.

Minions: The Entry of Dec (2022) – Movie Review [UIP]. More of the same – but is it really that bad?

As usual in this series, the humor is very physical. Minions hurt themselves in many ways, and since they’re practically immortal, you can throw them at anything, burn them and hell they know what else, and they just laugh. So the viewer laughs with them too. It’s not a very loud joke – one of the first jokes written about Gru’s gas bomb prototype, and closer to the end, one of the characters fell face down in suspicious dung-like mud. A little one is likely to be happy, and the accompanying parent is likely to have a good time through the agent. However, I’m not sure how happy I would have been to leave the cinema if I had gone to the show on my own.

In addition to the simple jokes for the little ones, there will also be a few larger hardcore in an easily digestible style, which only older viewers will notice. An example is the situation immediately after using the above gas bomb – Gru and Minionki went to see “Jaws” and the moments when the music gains strength amuse them the most. Of course, we can’t see the screen in the middle of it, but the adults know what’s going on there. There is something annoying about such gallows humor for the youngest of them. I immediately remember “The Adams Family” (The Good Family with Raul Julia and Christopher Lloyd).

It could be argued along the way that the plot of the Minions in today’s movie is, ironically, just an artificial filler for the movie to make it long enough, because the plot focuses more on a puppy and what is the relationship with the old lady from the acupuncture parlour who teaches Kevin and the rest of Kung Fu?! But the makers knew what they were doing, because all the threads eventually come together tidily in absurdly twisted finals, like anything bent on selling a whole pile of new games. That’s the magic of this kind of movie – it’s all made for marketing. But the bottom line is that the movie is still fun, its looks and sound are top notch, and there’s room for a small heart and a neat moral. I don’t know how they do it, but they made a totally awesome movie again. For a summer trip to the cinema with a branch in time.