Minions: The Rise of Gru Review: Everybody's favourite yellow helpers are in top form

Who doesn’t like the Minions? These tiny, childlike yellow things have enthralled children and adults alike for over a decade now, with their high-energy antics, turbo-charged gibberish-talk (that actually draws from French, Spanish, Japanese and a bunch of other languages) and propensity to show their butts. Since 2010’s Despicable Me, there have been films, TV shows and holiday specials, each showing off these Three Stooges and Looney Tunes-inspired Minions, as they offer their enthusiastic but comically inept services to their boss Gru (Steve Carrell), a supervillain grouch on the outside and a big ol’ softie on the inside.

Minions: The Rise of Gru is the fifth film in the franchise overall, and quite possibly the best of the series yet. Set in the swinging 1970s, the setting and the timeline give the makers ample opportunity to pepper the breathless action with some classic tunes —The Rolling Stones, The Beastie Boys, Blondie and Alice in Chains are all a part of the soundtrack (and Alice in Chains even makes a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo). We meet 11-year-old Gru as he aspires to join the supervillain group he idolizes: The Vicious Six, led by Belle Bottom (Taraji P. Henson), the upstart who tricks and then banishes the group’s old leader Wild Knuckles (Alan Arkin). The rest of the Six are also extremely colorful characters, like Nunchuck (Lucy Lawless) who’s a nun wielding the eponymous weapons. Or the lobster-fisted Jean Clawed (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and his mate Svengeance (Dolph Lundgren).

In a characteristically boisterous first act, we see Gru interviewing for the vacancy thus opened up at The Vicious Six, whose secret headquarters are a record store called, appropriately enough ‘Criminal Records’. This is also where Gru meets the store’s assistant, Doctor Nefario (Russell Brand), who we know is destined to become Gru’s future chief scientist and key ally. This first encounter between our heroes is very entertaining and unabashed fan service.

Predictably, the interview doesn’t go very well for Gru and in retaliation, he steals an amulet that the Vicious Six are planning to use on the Chinese New Year’s Eve to take over the world. This puts him in the supervillains’ crosshair (they kidnap Gru) and thanks to some classic Minions misadventures, in cahoots with the exiled Wild Knuckles himself. The crux of the story is about how the Minions are reunited with their ‘mini-Boss’ (what they call Gru) and how Gru learns some quintessential lessons in super-villainy from Wild Knuckles; the latter is just one of the many ways in which this film is inspired by The Karate Kid.

There are other amusing sideshows, like Hong Kong cinema legend Michelle Yeoh playing a martial arts instructor and acupuncturist who teaches kung fu to the three main Minions—their training montage sequence is pure gold and perhaps the clearest reflection of the debt the creators owe to The Three Stooges.

But really, the main event here is the animation. The Minions have never looked this good, this sprightly or this spectacularly kinetic ever before. In the middle of a chase sequence, their rotundity allows them to simply roll down a crowded sloping road, in a moment that would have done the old Looney Tunes masters proud. Little Gru himself is very well-sketched and his wide-eyed wonder at meeting his heroes—as well as the inevitable disappointment that follows—are captured very well by the close-focus animation on display here.

The climactic battle between the Six and Gru, Wild Knuckles and the Minions, is balletic in execution and grandiose in scope. I would very much like to see a behind-the-scenes video about how it was made. Without spoiling it for the audience, I’ll say that this is one of the better setpieces I have seen of late in a children’s movie.

At the end of the day, The Rise of Gru is a simple story with simple lessons—the Minions teach Gru that everybody, no matter how strong or how smart, needs a little bit of help from family at times. Wild Knuckles teaches Gru the value of patience and teamwork. And in their own twisted ways, the Vicious Six teach Gru that meeting one’s heroes is a risk-fraught venture at the best of times. All of these messages come through in an elegant, organic way across the film’s 90-minute runtime.

Minions: The Rise of Gru is another accomplished, typically frenetic outing for one of the most successful and enduring children’s franchises going around. Your kids will love it and you’ll find yourself chuckling at the strategically inserted 70s vibes.

Aditya Mani Jha is a Delhi-based independent writer and journalist, currently working on a book of essays on Indian comics and graphic novels.

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