Rating: Half-Full

Genre: Animated, Comedy, Family

Studios: Universal Pictures/Illumination

Cast: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Pierre Coffin, Joey King, Miranda Cosgrove, Sofia Vergara, Steve Coogan, Stephen Colbert, Chris Renaud, Madison Polan, Dana Gaier, Chloe Fineman and Will Farrell

Director: Chris Renaud

Writers: Ken Daurio and Mike White

Producers: Brett Hoffman and Chris Meledandri

Music by: Heitor Pereira

Rated: PG for action and rude humor

Release Date: 07/03/24

Runtime: 1h 34m

Tagline: This daddy’s a baddie

Favorite Character: Maxime Le Mal

Quote: “I can’t say my name is Britney! That would be a lie!”- Agnes

Fun Fact: The school Gru and Maxime used to attend, ‘Lycee Pas Bon’ is French for ‘High School

The Review: Everyone’s favorite minions are back on the screen for the sixth time since 2010 and since then, became another one of the yellow pop culture icons next to Spongebob and Pikachu. So far it has four main installments and two spin-offs with another heading for the 2027 date and the franchise didn’t ran out of gas…yet.

Gru (Steve Carrell) may not be a top villain as he used to dream of becoming, but he had done so many exceptional things beyond that. He adopted three girls (Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier and Madison Polan) became a secret agent of the AVL (Anti Villain League), married agent Lucy (Kristen Wiig) found out he has a twin brother (also played by Steve Carrell) who has a tiny cameo in this fourth main installment and now, he and Lucy had a son, promoting both of them from adoptive parents to the biological parents. Sounds like a happy ending right?

Well we should know by now that whenever there is a sequel, there is always going to be a new sort of danger. They are now being targeted by Maxime Le Mal (Will Farrell who took to long to join the franchise) a cockroach obsessed villain and Gru’s school rival, which we actually saw him get arrested by Gru at the reunion a short time ago. The family was forced to retreat to Mayflower, in the upper class neighborhood in a not quite an upper class house. That’s not all there is to it, they are also assigned new identities as the so called perfect Cunningham family.

Now what about the minions? Well only a few of them was lucky enough to accompanied the family and be part of the main storyline, the rest of them are given jobs at the AVL that is once again ran by Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan).

We noticed by now that there are lack of any superheroes in this Despicable world. AVL was the closest we got to the Justice League, but Ramsbottom does try to fill in that void by using the sci fi experimental machine to turn the five minions into heroes based off the classic Marvel characters (the big balloony-looking one is my favorite out of the five).

But below the goofy minion-y antics that makes the kiddies giggle, there are very many very messy seperate subplots that was spread all over pretty much a huge chunk of the 95 minutes this film runs. There are so many of them I can’t really name them all.

I will, however, give a shoutout to the one subplot when Gru is reeled into the heist by his temporary neighbor’s teenage daughter (Joey King) a big fan of Gru and convinced him to steal the badger from his former Villain school. It does connect well with Gru trying to improve his relationship with Gru jr.

Another new character that Will Farrell plays here wasn’t too bad, Even if his own version of Gru (with French accent) wasn’t his best role. At least it does allow him to have a little Anchorman get together with Carrell. It was fun putting those comedy duo together for their cover of ‘Everybody’s Wants to Rule the World’ at the end, which really celebrates the Minions franchise (hint: cameos).

And did I mention that Modern Family’s Sofia Vergara voices Maxime’s girlfriend that is named Valentina. But did I really forget? She may look so trendy and have a small pup with her but she was very pointless and has nothing to do with a story, I don’t even know why they put her in to begin with. Maybe because Illumination loves this America’s Got Talent judge so much they are willing to create a useless character just for that moment. At least Maxime and Joey does play some big moments here.

I will admit, the ending feels like that this is it for the franchise, don’t worry, Minions isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Mainly because Universal cares more about mega moolah than trying to come up with an exceptional story, At the same time, they may be trying to come up with a story after all.