Minions (2015)

Let me be blunt: Minions isn't really a film. It's a delivery mechanism for merchandise. Ninety minutes of noise, yellow plastic, and boardroom logic dressed up in an animation studio's clothing. I sat through it wondering at what point anyone involved paused and asked whether there was actually a story worth telling here, and I'm fairly confident the answer is: nobody did, because that wasn't the question anyone was asking.

The premise, such as it is, follows those gibberish-spouting little yellow creatures from the Despicable Me franchise as they bounce through history hunting for the most villainous boss they can find to serve. That's a concept that works for three minutes of comic relief, maybe a short film, maybe a very generous sketch. Stretched to feature length, it collapses almost immediately. One villain gets swapped out for another, the Minions cause chaos, somebody learns a hollow lesson about loyalty, and then it ends. That's it. No real stakes, no coherent throughline, no emotional weight of any kind.

Sandra Bullock voices Scarlet Overkill, and to her credit she's clearly giving it a go. But there's nothing there for her to work with. The character goes nowhere, does nothing surprising, and disappears from memory before the credits finish rolling. The 1960s London setting, which could have been genuinely fun and visually rich, is completely squandered. It's window dressing. A few red buses and a bit of mod fashion and then back to the slapstick conveyor belt: exaggerated faces, fart jokes, pratfalls, repeat.

Now, I'll grant the obvious defence: this is aimed at small children, and small children will laugh at it. Fine. Genuinely, fine. I'm not going to sit here and pretend the film's target audience is betrayed by the content. Six-year-olds probably have a great time. But Pixar proved decades ago that you don't have to choose between keeping kids entertained and giving adults something to hold onto. Good family films work on multiple levels. Minions doesn't even attempt that. It aims low with precision and lands exactly where it set out to. The ambition itself is the problem.

Even the animation, which is usually where Illumination at least earns some credit, feels deflated here. Flatter, cheaper-looking, closer to a Saturday morning cartoon than something you'd pay cinema prices to watch. It's a step down from what the Despicable Me films managed, and given how I felt about Despicable Me 3, that's saying something. And if you want to know whether the franchise found its footing again, my thoughts on Minions: The Rise of Gru are already up on the site. Spoiler: the Minion industrial complex continues unabated.

What really stings is the cynicism of the whole enterprise. At least a bad film can fail interestingly, can swing for something and miss. Minions doesn't swing. It calculates. It knows exactly what it is: a franchise extension, a brand reinforcement, a toy catalogue with a runtime. The people who greenlit it knew they didn't need a good film. They needed a recognisable product that would shift units, and on those terms it was presumably a roaring success.

But that doesn't mean I have to pretend it qualifies as cinema in any meaningful sense. Barely a movie. One and a half stars, and I'm being generous with that half.

Rating: ★½  | Year: 2015  | Watched: 2025-08-04

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Sky Go · Now TV Cinema
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
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Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Netflix · Peacock Premium · Netflix Standard with Ads · Peacock Premium Plus
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Physical: Amazon US

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Kyle Balda: Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) · Despicable Me 3 (2017)
More with Sandra Bullock: Bird Box (2018) · Gravity (2013) · Demolition Man (1993)
More from the 2010s: Wonder (2017) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
More family: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Wonder (2017) · Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anastasia (1997)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)