The movie has barely begun and already the Minions are inescapable, gatecrashing the Universal Studios ident with their signature piercing squeals. Although it marks the first feature-length outing for the little yellow irritants and functions primarily as an origin story, Minions operates on the assumption that its audience is already well versed in Minion mythology and behaviour. And with good reason: not only are the creatures familiar to millions of kids worldwide from their appearances in the Despicable Me franchise, but Universal cannily began marketing this solo venture around the time its target demographic was born, guaranteeing its success at the box office.”
The first 10 minutes of the film serve as a potted history of Minionkind, in which Geoffrey Rush explains via voiceover that the banana-loving underlings are immortal, and have thereby served under almost all of history’s most determined evildoers. It’s hard to imagine, much less remember, a time before the Minions (what did people dress as on pub crawls?) so I see no reason to doubt the veracity of this particular claim.
From there, we fast-forward to 1968 and observe as the Minions emerge from more than a century of voluntary exile in Antarctica — a narrative contrivance that allows the film to sidestep the thorny issue of what role they might have played in the Great Purge — and set a course for London
As a world blissfully unfamiliar with the Minions is turned upside down by their disruptive presence (one fires a rocket launcher at a police cruiser, another topples Queen Elizabeth II from the British throne), viewers are invited to look back wistfully on a time before our own civilisation was for ever changed by the advent of the pill-shaped twits. Because although their big-screen vehicle may run at a svelte 91 minutes, you sense it’s just the first stage in the quest for global Minion rule that will eventually be the end of us all.
Also out this week
The Legend Of Barney Thomson Dire directorial debut from Robert Carlyle.
Love & Mercy Birfurcated Brian Wilson biopic.
Dapper Laughs Live: The Res-Erection Return of the reformed comic.
