The Minions Should Never Make a Movie
Putting the Minions in charge of a film set is asking for trouble. In Minions & Monsters, James, Henry and Ed try to shoot a monster movie in 1920s Hollywood and release a real monster. The film begins streaming on Peacock in the US on Wednesday, October 28, giving that terrible decision a timely Halloween outing.
The part that interests me is the decade. Director and Minions voice Pierre Coffin connects the setting to silent comedy:
There is something generous about a joke that everyone in the room can see coming. A child spots the same danger as a parent, and now you are both waiting for the idiot on screen to turn around. That is a much more appealing family evening than sitting beside a child and waiting for the occasional reference aimed at you.
Coffin’s emphasis on expression has a specific counterpart in the film’s setup: Peacock says Ed communicates through Minionese sign language. A gesture can do the work of a line. A reaction can be the joke. For characters so often associated with noise, that is an interesting direction.
Monsters for the shared sofa
A monster-movie mishap gives those characters something straightforward to react to. You wanted a creature for your film. You got one. Now you have a problem that a production meeting is unlikely to solve. The appeal is easy to understand even before anyone has said anything.
On that premise, I would put Minions & Monsters on the Halloween shortlist for a household that would rather laugh at a creature than spend the evening afraid of it. The draw is Coffin’s interest in physical comedy, where the whole family can be in on the joke.
The 90-minute running time helps: there should still be room for trick-or-treating. The US rating is PG; if a child is wary of monsters, check the trailer together first. If it suits the youngest viewer, queue up the film after its October 28 arrival and give these hopeless filmmakers your shared sofa.
