Minions: The Rise of Gru is the latest in the Despicable Me film series. I (mostly) enjoyed those movies about Gru, though I skipped the first Minions film because I thought it looked dumb. Should have stuck to my initial reaction on this sequel too.
The film follows young Gru as he tries to get into his first group of supervillains. The Vicious 6 need a new member as they just betrayed their last, Wild Knuckles, who was the founder but who the rest of the group thought was getting too old. Gru is turned away during his interview and scoffed at for being too young. In an attempt to woo them over, Gru sets out to find at the missing Zodiac Stone, a coveted treasure that the Vicious 6 would love to get their hands on. But the plot is secondary to what this film is really about: the minions and their antics.
The kids movies that really work are those that have jokes for the young ones, but which still have some kind of message or something that engages the parents too. This film has nothing for anyone older than about 8 or 9. All of the minions’ gags are dumb, playing off continual fart jokes or shots of the minions’ butts when their pants fall down. The kids in the theater with me were laughing hard, but I was bored about 10 minutes in and it never got better. As close to a complete waste of time as a movie gets. ★
Jons Movie Takes 