42 Unhinged Observations About Minions and Monsters

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Minions and Monsters, the latest Despicable Me spinoff from Illumination and Universal, puts the spotlight on a new crew of the beloved overall-wearing Minions. No need for Gru when you have, well, monsters! Not to mention a lot more classic film history than you might expect.

So, as with past animated movies like The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and The Smurfs, please find below a collection of bullet points that attempt to capture the slapstick madness of a movie that actually ended up being a pretty good time. There’s a lot in this movie that might be just for the film nerds in the crowd, but as a film nerd, I felt very well taken care of.

Confession: I am not a Minions completist, though as a person alive in the 21st century, I am quite aware of the Minions, and not just because one haunts a specific freeway here in Los Angeles.
- One time at Universal Studios I watched a Minion attempt to get very intimate with my mother, because she was wearing a button-down shirt with bananas on it.
- She wore the shirt knowing it might get a reaction, but she was not perhaps prepared for how intense things might get.
Anyways, Minions! They are cute and weird and, as we will learn from this movie, capable of greatness!
The movie opens not with the Minions singing the Universal theme (as other Minions-related installments have) but with a flashing back through the Universal logos of the past, all the way back to the studio’s earliest days. This is important, because of history.
Then, a tour guide (voiced by Allison Janney) guides tourists through a museum devoted to cinema history, with exhibits devoted to E.T. the Extraterrestrial, The Matrix, and classic cinema like The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Metropolis, and The Mummy.
It also has a frankly delightful cameo from George Lucas as himself. Poor George.
Also featured in this museum are statues of two Minions named Henry and James (which I guess is a reference to famed author Henry James? Or it’s just a coincidence).
Allison Janney is horrified that her tour group has not heard of Henry and James, who she says were instrumental to film history, and immediately makes them all sit down in the middle of this museum so she can narrate the rest of the movie tell a story.
See, Minions and Monsters does not focus on the core trio of Minions familiar to Despicable Me fans (whose names I have just looked up, and are Kevin, Stuart, and Bob). Instead, it introduces a new tribe of Minions who have lived a separate but similar existence to the duders who eventually went on to serve Gru.
Henry and James are kind of the outcasts of this particular tribe, led by a Minion named Dick. James likes to create art and tell stories and Henry likes looking at James’s art and listening to his stories…
I don’t care what anyone involved with the making of this movie has to say on the matter, Henry and James are very clearly in love and I am happy for them.
Henry and James are also tight with a Minion named Ed, who is hard of hearing and communicates through sign language. Ed’s fun!
This Minions tribe, like most Minions tribes, only wants to serve a “big boss,” but through their silliness and/or clumsiness gets a lot of those bosses seriously injured and/or killed.
One of those bosses was an evil wizard with a book of magic spells that conjure up monsters, which Ed snagged after the wizard met his inevitable fate. This will be important later.
It’s worth noting that the bulk of the spoken English so far heard comes from Allison Janney and George Lucas. Most everything else is either in Minionese or another language, to the point where it’s almost a foreign language film.
- Honestly, that rules. Love visual storytelling!
The Minions continue bopping about through time until they reach the year 1920, stumbling into Los Angeles just at the height of the silent film era.
“Stumbling” is a key word here: Through a wild sequence of events, they end up blundering onto the set of a movie being directed by Max (voiced by Christoph Waltz).
- That wild sequence of events includes a speed run through some of silent film’s most iconic moments, with homage being paid to Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Buster Keaton.
- Honestly, watching Minions and Monsters should count as college credit towards any film studies degree.
While the Minions do ruin Max’s planned stunts, the resulting footage proves their star power to the studio bosses (one nice, one mean, and in a surprising twist, they’re both voiced by Josh Brolin!).
Almost instant stardom results.
It is surreal to be hard-sold on the Minions being movie stars in a movie starring the Minions.
Still, happy for them. Acting in movies seems to be a lot more fun than working for evil people.
- In this particular case, at least, those aren’t mutually exclusive concepts.
Anyways, Minions and Monsters just turns into Singing in the Rain or Babylon at this point, which is pretty great.
- There are even elephants at their big wild Hollywood parties, though thankfully there is no recreation of Babylon‘s opening elephant scene.
As anyone who’s seen Singing in the Rain or Babylon knows, the silent era ended with the introduction of sound. The physical resemblance between Lina Lamont and a Minion is zero, but they both run into the same problem: They can’t say dialogue good on camera.
Thus, the Minions tumble from their pedestal of fame, are evicted from their fancy mansion, and most of the tribe returns to their core mission of serving potential evildoers.
- They end up meeting an evil alien robot named Dort (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg, which is actually another great casting choice). Good for them!
James, however, is still determined to make his own project, and with Henry and Ed’s help comes up with the idea to make a monster movie — using a real monster, conjured from that book of spells I told you would be important later.
The Cthulhu-esque monster they magic into existence ends up looking a lot less scary in real life than on the page. He is named Goomi, and he is voiced by Trey Parker in hardcore Terrance & Phillip mode.
- Trey Parker is actually second-billed, just behind director/Minions voice actor Pierre Coffin. He’s above actual Oscar winners Allison Janney and Christoph Waltz!
- Did you even know that Trey Parker was allowed to do projects without Matt Stone? Or use that specific voice outside of South Park?
- It’s all very weird.
Because he is too cute and lil to make for a convincing on-screen threat, Goomi does help James and Henry and Ed track down some more camera-ready monsters.
From there… No spoilers, but mayhem ensues.
Honestly, this was a pretty fun tribute to classic cinema and the joy of storytelling.
It does raise questions about whether the Minions-verse is exactly the same as our universe, except for the known existence of Minions throughout history. World-building does not appear to be one of this franchise’s strong suits.
However, I laughed a lot. James and Henry forever!
I hope this movie wins ten banana-shaped Oscars.