We’re 2/3 of the way through Minions. Nobody’s
laughing. Families have walked out. My 8-year-old is reading his popcorn
box. My wife leans over and whispers,
“Will this movie never end?” I whisper
back, “Two words: catastrophic failure.”
The film begins with a short history of minions, little
yellow thumb-like creatures who live to serve villains. It shows them serving a cute T-Rex, then
accidentally tipping it over into boiling lava.
This is played for laughs, but nobody laughs because there’s nothing
funny about falling into a pit of molten lava.
Later, it shows them serving an Egyptian pharaoh, then accidentally
tipping over a carefully balanced inverted pyramid and crushing their master
and his party underneath. Again, this is
played for laughs. Nobody laughs because there’s nothing funny about being crushed to death. Later in the film, there’s a long sequence
involving hijinks in a torture chamber.
Again, nobody laughs. With the
notable exception of The Princess Bride,
there’s nothing funny about torture chambers.
The whole film is filled with missteps such as these. The bulk of the action’s set in late ‘60s /
early ‘70s London, a time as alien to the average 8-year-old as medieval
China. There’s gag after gag taking
the wind out of hippie culture. There’s
a Jimi Hendrix joke, complete with guitar lick, and even an “Abbey Road” cover
photo joke with a complete setup, payoff, and denouement. All this must have seemed wonderfully
amusing to whatever 67-year-old executive greenlit the film, but it was lost on
the young families in my theater. I just
sat there wondering who this movie was actually supposed to be for.
And yet, when the credits rolled, my 8-year-old and his friends
declared that they loved it; so what do I know?
All I can say is the Minions
is the worst film I, personally, have seen so far this year.
