Our beloved banana-yellow, dungaree-wearing friends are back! But, this time audiences are transported back to the groovy seventies, where we follow the origin story of an adorable young Gru, who tries to join his favourite supervillain group, the Vicious 6. Accompanying Gru and his babbling henchmen’s antics is a seriously boogie-inducing soundtrack, produced by the iconic Jack Antonoff and featuring artists like Tame Impala, Diana Ross, and Phoebe Bridgers.
Vibrant psychedelic bops aside, I loved the unexpected integration of Chinese culture. I also can’t help but uncanningly relate to the newest minion on the block, Otto. Sometimes, I’m dumb as pet rocks too.
This film officially marked the transition of my love for The Minions franchise from ironic, to proudly unironic. Once I finally liberated myself from pretentious indie film snobbery, I could finally appreciate the criminally underrated use of avant-garde absurdism in these films. They demonstrate that lovable characters don’t need to be multidimensional. Nor does humour have to be witty or meta to be good. In this exhausting world, sometimes all we need is a good ol’ slapstick fart-gun joke.
From Boomer Facebook memes, Gen-Z shitposts riddled with edgy post-irony, and more tragically, banana flavoured Tic-Tacs, The Minions franchise is a gift that keeps on giving.
Gorls, suit up! This one-in-a-minion blockbuster will have you going bananas.