Minions

This review may contain spoilers!

The latest in Dreamworks' downward spiral this 2015. I would give Minions a 4.5/10.

The thing that Minions did really well was have a constant string of fairly funny moments; it was the hilarious scenes that made the film any good.

Sandra Bullock, who voiced Scarlett Overkill, was quite a fun antagonist; her role was vicious but also incredibly entertaining in her major scenes. Michael Keaton and Allison Janney, who voiced Walter Nelson and Madge Nelson respectively, were hilarious as the modern American family turned criminal; the whimsical way they portrayed their characters really worked in tandem with the criminal element of their roles. Steve Carell, who voiced Young Gru, was one of the best things to happen in this film; his cameo embodied everything good and entertaining in the Despicable Me franchise.

However the best performance came from one of the characters Pierre Coffin voiced; Bob the Minion. Coffin's voice work on Bob was much better than the general noise of all the other Minions. in fact this film was only as entertaining as it was because of the way he portrayed Bob. Bob was immediately the more adorable character, with his fixation on his teddy and pet rat becoming scene stealers. He was also slotted more and more into the story as a main driving force, presumably because he was far more likeable than other Minion characters.

The story for this film was all over the place, the storyline kept jumping from random scenario to the next random scenario. As such the pacing for this film was pretty bad, you were left wanting the film to be over twenty minutes in. The animation for this film is another example of why Dreamworks is lagging behind these days; it's just all the same stuff they really don't work to have a new distinct look. Furthermore the soundtrack was terrible, I'm all for using music from the era the film is set in; but this film really struggled to create an original sound to it.

Jon Hamm, who voiced Herb Overkill, was a really annoying voice in this film; his character was kinda worthless without Bullock's but he clearly had no chemistry with her. Jennifer Saunders, who voiced The Queen, was just plain awful; it was annoying listening to such an over-exaggerated voice for the royal figure and it wasn't very original. Geoffrey Rush, who voiced The Narrator, was one of the worst choices they could have made to lead the story along; his tone wasn't exciting and it actually took away from the film more than anything. Pierre coffin, who voiced The Minions, really just made a lot of noise; despite his work on Bob the rest of the minion cast was just annoying and cheap gag humour surrounded by pretty generic noise making.