Minions

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.

Toy Story 3

They made Toy Story 3 for kids, right?

They animated it with pretty colors and they used established characters from the first two Toy Story films, which definitely felt like kid-friendly fare.  They set much of the action in a day care center, and they used a fuzzy purple teddy bear for a villain – how much more kid-friendly could they get?

A lot more.  In fact, I rate Toy Story 3 as the most terrifying kids’ movie since Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (You remember Chitty: the Andrews / Van Dyke Disney romp that featured a child abductor who haunted preadolescents’ dreams for years).  The themes center on loss and betrayal and the slow, mortal march of time.  The day care center becomes a chamber of horrors that will make a generation of children scream in dismay at the prospect of spending time anywhere similar.  The visuals include a creepy baby-doll who looks like something out of a Romero film, a gelatinous octopus that’d make Lovecraft shriek, and a Daliesque animated tortilla with Potato Head features that weaves and lurches in sickening contortions.  Don’t even get me started on the aforementioned villain, an evil good ol’ boy of a bear (brilliantly voiced by Ned Beatty) who represents everything wrong with authority and everything to fear in those who promise to look after you.

Here’s the deal: the first films’ Andy’s all grown up and ready to head off to college, and his toys find themselves in a box dropped off at the local day care.  Things seem lovely at first, but it isn’t long before the true nature of the facility reveals itself.  Can our heroes escape?  With Andy leaving them behind, to what do they have to escape?  Why bother?

We’re talking about some dark stuff.  Combine it with some of the film’s unnerving visuals and scary sequences, and I can’t imagine showing it to anyone under the age of ten.  Hell, just writing about Toy Story 3 creeps me out all over again.  If this is a kids’ movie, I’d hate to see what Pixar can put together for adults.

Cars

CARS isn't wildly funny or illuminating or anything else. It just sorta rocks along pleasantly for an hour and a half, content to be content in the journey.

Here's the setup: Lightning McQueen is *this close* to winning the coveted Piston Cup and making all his dreams come true. He's just gotta get to LA in time for the race and the meeting with the big sponsor and the fame and the fans and so on and so forth. But then he gets sidetracked, DOC HOLLYWOOD style, in a litte town on Route 66. Surprisingly, he learns some life lessons about community and selflessness, and he finds out that maybe what he wanted isn't what he wanted, at all. It's a fine chassis for a kids' story, and it works as advertised, with some particularly clever touches in the realization of an all-autos world. This is a Pixar production, so it looks fabulous and has all the marks of a precision machine. It hits its marks and, while not a masterpiece, it answers the mail.

What's more interesting is the trend to focus on the importance of sportsmanship and fair play in kids' movies that I've been noticing. It's a delightful change from the "2nd place is first loser" mentality that I see permeating much of popular culture and a message that's worth getting out there. There's nothing trite about class, and it's good to see that reinforced in popular entertainment.