Minions & Monsters Is The Only Kids' Movie You Need To Watch This Summer
Written by Robert Scucci | Published
After graduating college in 2010, I missed the Despicable Me franchise for a few reasons. The biggest one was that I was the youngest member of my family by a long shot, meaning I was 22 years old when the first one came out. I wasn't just a target based on the circumstances of my life alone. I also had a colleague at my post-grad office job who had Minion plushies all over their fountains, and our tastes didn't match at all, so there was another layer of inaccessibility that kept me away from the franchise.
I'm not the type of person who hates outside of things that bring people joy if those things are harmless, but I also write things quickly based on what I know I like and don't like, so I've never thought too much about the Despicable Me or Minions movie series.
And then I had children.
I've played these movies in my house after checking them out for my kids, and they're innocent enough, but I've also sat down with my kids and casually watched them. South Park (more on that later), so take what I say with a grain of salt. When our local theater announced that they were going to play Friends & Monstersmy 5 year old son and 8 year old daughter are losing their minds.
I lost my mind again because it was nothing but kids movies this summer, okay, but I'm still worried about missing out. 28 years later: Temple of Bones because we could not find a resident.
So we spent Saturday night watching Friends & Monstersthe latest installment of a business I know nothing about except how annoying their voices are, and I actually had the best time, though not for the reason you'd expect.
The obvious reason is that I have never heard my children laugh harder at anything in their entire lives. The obvious reason is that Friends & Monsters is the seventh feature-length installment in the Despicable Me franchise, among countless other shorts, but you can enjoy it as a standalone episode without knowing anything at all about the series.
If you really want to enjoy Despicable Me as a parent, do as my daughter says and “Lock it up, Baby Cakes!”
Zero Lore Dumps. Don't Just Watch a Movie.
The night before the sight seeing Friends & MonstersI did one of these Wikipedia crawls to target character names, and gave up soon after. It's not that I'm impatient with my kids' entertainment options, either. I know it well Bluey, Blippi, Paw Patrol, Peppa Pigand when the time is right, I even sneak in some Rocko's Modern Life when I think they are ready for comedy.
With such short notice, casting for six movies and God knows how many plays, shorts, and web series was impossible.
I said, “Trade,” and I went in blind, and that's exactly the way it is Friends & Monsters he defeated me.
You can enter completely blind.
So what is it about? It's about Minions throughout history who influence world events because they stick to masters, for better or worse, and cause havoc because they're completely enslaved by their own desires. Their behavior almost always ends in disaster.
We are introduced to James, Henry, Ed, and Dick, all voiced by Pierre Coffin, and these are the Minions we spend the most time with. They all sound the same, obviously, and they all act the same. They speak in a strange mixture of English and gibberish, and leave waves of destruction wherever they go, not fully understanding the difficulties of whatever situation they are in.
Here, they unknowingly destroy the projects of Max (Christoph Waltz) the filmmaker by wandering into the frame. To his surprise and delight, studio executives Frank and Elwood Bright (Jeff Bridges) love the little creatures and want them to appear in all of his films. When the silent era comes to an end and Hollywood embraces the talkies, every movie that plays Minions tanks because no one can understand what they are saying.
Justifiably depressed, they decided to make their own film. Their brilliant idea is to summon a demon so they can create the ultimate monster movie. James, Henry, and Ed contact the Book of the Dead and accidentally call Goomi (Trey Parker), whose full name is Gary Orkam Oliver Magma Ichabod the Impostor. Dick and the other Minions instead encounter a fictional robot named Dort (Jesse Eisenberg), and naturally the whole plan backfires, leaving them to clean up the collateral damage they've caused.
It Sounds Like The Boy From South Park Because It Is
As I said at the beginning, I do watch The Simpsons again South Park and my children. I think it's healthy to sit down with your kids and talk about what's right and wrong, as long as you don't push the envelope too far. We don't watch episodes like “Mr. Garrison's New Genital,” but we definitely watched “The Losing Edge” several times.
The only reason I'm bringing this up is that the second Goomi started talking, my daughter and I turned to each other and asked in unison, “Is that Cartman?!” I thought it was someone doing a convincing impression because the voice is iconic, but when the credits rolled, it was confirmed that Trey Parker was voicing Goomi Friends & Monsters.
And honestly, it makes perfect sense. If only you knew South Park In lore, Cthulhu appeared during the “Coon and Friends” storyline, so Parker has a soft spot for silly monster comics.
The part that I really enjoyed about Parker's involvement was that he just got a chance to voice the character in something that his daughter could watch. That's pretty funny when you consider that there are tons of pictures on the internet of him saying that his daughter recorded Ike Broflovski's dialogue completely intact. South Park.
Even If You Don't Enjoy It, You Will Enjoy How Much Your Kids Enjoy It
I'm happy to report that I actually liked it Friends & Monsters. Given the nature of its story and the time in which it takes place, it takes many cues from classic Hollywood settings while infusing nearly every scene with comical and chaotic action. If you're into the kind of physical comedy you'd find on an old Laurel and Hardy or Jerry Lewis show, you'll probably have a good time.
I am very happy because it played like a standalone game.
My wife, who doesn't know much about Minions, kept turning to me and asking what was going on, and I'd just back off and say, “I don't know. They're little pills with one cell and they can't control pressure,” before adding, “Then they fell on the floor and stuff.”
Apparently that was an acceptable answer.
My favorite part of the movie, though, was hearing how much my kids laughed. It reminded me of that Family Guy the scene where Brian calls out Stewie for annoying laughs whenever he thinks something is really funny, except three or four octaves higher and about ten times higher.
I'm always joking, but I guess I don't laugh that much because I've never heard them laugh so hard.
It was good for my soul.
I still don't really know what the Minions are about, but they gave us such a great Saturday night, honestly, I have no notes.
Friends & Monsters is currently playing in theaters everywhere. Bring earplugs to pound the floor a little, and you'll have a great time watching this one with your kids.
