Critic Reviews

Improbably, this fantastic animated kids movie, sure to be a highlight of the summer, is an adult cinephile’s dream.

It’s a genuine triumph, not just in its construction as a kid’s movie comedy sequence but also as a distillation of all the cinematic pioneers who paved the way for something like the Minions to exist, let alone succeed.

Returning director Pierre Coffin bombards viewers with the slapstick and gibberish you expect in a Minions movie, but the references to cinema history — and the love letter to both moviemaking and moviegoing — give this kiddie sequel a wonderful jolt of smarts and sentiment.

Even as it ultimately bends to convention, the film is such a weird, willful popular entertainment for much of its (blessedly snappy) running time that it holds your goodwill: It’s almost bellissima but it’s fully, madly moviosa, and that’s more than the seventh entry in any animated franchise has a right to be.

It’s a charming, brightly animated love letter to Hollywood’s heyday and a celebration of the moviegoing experience.

Minions & Monsters is the most refreshing entry in the franchise, in that it completely sets itself apart from the group of characters we’ve been following for almost two decades.

Arriving equipped with a fabulous voice cast (including three Oscar winners, no less), and visual gags aplenty, this is a charming, frequently funny adventure. Make no mistake, there’s still life in the Minions franchise yet.

Who would have thought it, but the seventh movie in the Despicable Me franchise may be the best one yet, as Minions & Monsters uses those little banana-loving dudes to make an ode to early Hollywood and to the power of cinema and storytelling.

Coffin is fine inviting them into the big tent with the rest of us, if only to show where the Hollywood blockbuster machine can find its next gear. Go back to basics, his film says. Entertain, invigorate and charm. Not every movie has to be “Citizen Kane.” Just get everyone laughing.

Before it surrenders to the conventional in its final act, Minions & Monsters is irresistibly awash in the liberty of being the seventh installment of a franchise so consistently successful that the powers that be approved a story line that pivots on the advent of sound.