MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU (2022)

MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU (2022)

Tagline: Brace yourself.

(Animation, Adventure, No Ha Ha) [PG]

Distinguished villains, my name is Gru! I I feel like I'm talking too loud, even though our proximity doesn't require this kind of volume!

In this one, we are taken back to 1976 when Gru is first realizing he wants to be one of the world’s greatest super-villains. To make that clear, he decides to try and join the super villain super group the Vicious 6. In order to do that he leaves behind his minions only to find out later, that he needs them more than ever after his grand moment turns into the biggest heist of his young life. 

First off, one thing the Minions movies do really well is come up with cool villains’ names. Scarlet Overkill, Wild Knuckles, Belle Bottom, Jean-Clawed, Svengeance, Stronghold, and Nun-Chucks round out the 7 we’ve had aside from Gru. In spite of the cool new batch we got, Scarlet Overkill is still the best name and probably the coolest character is Jean-Clawed with Nun-Chucks as a close second. In any regard there is zero shortage of creativity in this series and MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU is no exception. 

Some of the better things about this movie are just all the rad artwork as I alluded to earlier and the story itself also has a lot of heart and I really like that about all the films in this series. I also liked the pace of this thing. It’s a get-in get-out 87 minutes and none of it is boring. I also have to give this one props for getting a little outside the box with some of the more crazy things that happen involving a mystical take on Kung Fu. 

Where this thing kind of lost me is in the last 45 minutes or so. The movie starts off with tons of jokes and fun and is basically a full-blown comedy where we get to see most of what was in the previews. Unfortunately, after that, we only get a few more honestly funny jokes in the entire movie because they trade humor for action. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good animated action flick, but it felt like whoever wrote the first half of the movie was kidnapped, then someone ran a tube into their brain and poured a bunch of Coca-Cola in there and every bit of humor just went out the ear holes. It was just rough due to the absence of the really fun humor the series is known for. 

I like the fact that we got a fantastic cast including the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme, Danny Trejo, Lucy Lawless, Dolph Lundgren, and Russell Brand. I think everyone did a pretty great job in the voice roles. I also loved the energy this movie had, so in spite of my few issues with it, I don’t want to create the thought that I hated it. I didn’t but compared to the first MINIONS movie, this one just didn’t quite capture the magic and roll-on-the-floor laugh-inducing lunacy I was hoping for. 

This one is a 4 out of 7, but it definitely wasn’t something anyone needs to see in the theaters and it wasn’t worth the almost 2 and a half years between the movie's first trailer and the movie's theatrical release. I would rather they had just put this out on a streaming service, but I realize, that makes them a lot less money and we are likely to get several more of these movies. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES CORPORATION AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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