It seems a little strange to me to realize that the 15th October this year will mark twelve years since the first Despicable Me film came out in the UK. I don’t think anyone, least of all me, expected it to reach the heights that it has, since the first one looked like just another disposable family film that would come and go. But instead the franchise has enjoyed unprecedented success with sequels, merchandise, internet memes and of course spin-off films… which brings me neatly to Minions: The Rise of Gru, the second spin-off film from Despicable Me and obviously a sequel to 2015’s Minions. Kyle Balda who co-directed both Minions and Despicable Me 3 takes sole director’s credit for the first time.
Following on from Minions the year is 1976 and they are now living with eleven-year-old Gru (Steve Carell) and his mum (Julie Andrews) in San Francisco. Gru seems to tolerate the minions but doesn’t think too highly of them and of course dreams of being a supervillain – which seems to come true when’s he’s interviewed by a famous gang of villains ‘The Vicious Six’ – but is rejected on the basis he is still a child. In retaliation, he takes a zodiac stone that they took from their leader Wild Knuckles (Alan Arkin), so they chase after him and before long Gru is in the hands of Wild Knuckles and it’s up to the minions to get him back.
It may sound a little odd hearing Carell’s voice come out of someone who is supposed to be eleven years old, – adults do voice kids’ animation all the time, but an effort is always made to disguise the voices. No such effort is made with Carrell and he still plays Gru much the same way, apart from still being very naïve about the kind of world he is destined to be part of when he is older. But none of these potential obstacles stop him from having good chemistry with Arkin. There’s no doubt the latter is hamming his performance up in certain places but he does give his character a degree of personality, something I can’t help but admire.
The cast is full of surprising choices such as Taraji P Henson, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Lucy Lawless, Danny Trejo and Dolph Lundgren, who make up most of the villains. There is just one problem – they may be talented people but most of them are given little to no screentime and I don’t think you would even know it was them voicing the characters. Henson gets the most dialogue but it does seem a little odd to get a cast like this only to squander their talents so mercilessly. Russell Brand, Steve Coogan and Will Arnett all briefly appear as the younger versions of their Despicable Me characters, but they just feel like obligatory cameos or something for long-time fans to point out that they remember. Michelle Yeoh appears as a martial artist and does what she can in a short space of time but again like the other actors here, you wouldn’t know it was her and she deserves better material to work with. The same can be said of Julie Andrews as Gru’s mum, whose role is just as thankless, if not more so.
Most screenplays for animated films are pretty easy to predict and unremarkable, and Matthew Fogel who wrote the screenplay and worked on the story with Bryan Lynch delivers on such expectations. It may be predictable right from the start but like most animated films it’s fairly short and fast-paced. The slapstick and other comedy are mildly entertaining and there are two main plot threads that need to be resolved by the end, both of which are given just about enough time to do so, are kept apart fairly well and don’t really impact one another until they have to out of necessity during the climax.
There are a few so called ‘call-forwards’ to the first film, such as Gru covering coffee shop occupants in cheese instead of ice, and I think he even has the same reaction to the long line. He tries to make conversation with other villains and along with Knuckles tries to rob the Bank of Evil for the money to ensure his plan to steal the moon; and a picture of a young Vector is seen. There’s no real point to these but I’m sure some long-time fans of the franchise will appreciate them.
When it comes to the minions themselves, I’m not sure how to talk about characters where you can’t even make out half of what they are saying, but they are popular, mostly funny at the right moments, can get a little annoying but only if they outstay their welcome.
I was pleasantly caught off-guard by the film’s very Bond-inspired intro, complete with the visual style of the introduction to the films of that franchise, set to a song which (like the minions) sounds like gibberish except for the words, “bang bang.” These are apparently being sung by Caroline Polachek who had me fooled for a second that she was a singer from that era.
The movie being set in the 70s, there are refences to things that were popular at the time, such as Gru and the minions seeing Jaws in the cinema and a voice yelling, “I’m walkin’ here!” If you know much about 70s music, the odds are there is a song here that you like but do listen out for songs such as Goodbye to Love, More, More, More, Born to Be Alive, Funkytown and You’re No Good plus many more. I’m sure those will be more to the liking of the adults – which I hope was the intention since it implies that Illumination hasn’t forgotten about the parents or grandparents who may not be that fond of the franchise but will endure it for their children – as it is one of the big summer films of the year.
The way I look at this is, it does what it sets out to do just fine and works as passable entertainment. I think this might just be the Illumination sequel that I have liked the most, though that isn’t really saying much. Given the choices of what you might spend nearly two hours or longer watching right now, this would likely be among the better choices. It may not be perfect but it certainly isn’t despicable.
