Minions & Monsters (2026) Review
THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Considering Illumination is gonna keep milking the cow with the Despicable Me franchise that’s made them bankable from the get go, especially the Minions characters, audiences like myself are gonna wonder how else can they keep the ball rolling. In this case, make it a cinematic throwback for the ages.
PLOT
2026’s Minions & Monsters begins with a tour guide named Olivia (Allison Janney) who shows tourists a film museum and reveals that the minions have actually been pioneers of the film industry for some time. She shares a story that long before serving Felonious Gru, their purpose was to serve the most dangerous leaders, but it would mostly lead to inadvertently killing each one of them. After getting a Cyclops injured, they continued traveling until finding their next boss. There was one minion named James who had an artistic mind wanted to be a storyteller and bonded two others who supported his passion, Henry & Ed, the latter being deaf and spoke via ASL. Around the time they also get a Russian warlock killed on accident, they take a spellbook and later unintentionally find themselves in 1920s Hollywood, interrupting a fictional robbery. Although their involvement wasn’t planned, studio executives Frank & Elwood Bright are enamored of them all and task a director named Max to put them in as much movies as possible. The minions would be a success as they hoped, but it wouldn’t last because once sound would be developed, nobody understood their minionese language and they get fired as that cost the studios millions of dollars. Not wanting to give up on the dream of storytelling, James pitches to the tribe of making their own movie where the story involves them fighting monsters. The tribe’s leader Dick dismisses it before they go off to find a new boss. Henry & Ed stay behind with him to help make it possible and when pitching it to Max, he gives them a camera for them to get started. As Dick and the tribe meet an extraterrestrial robot named Dort and unintentionally blossom his romance with a female activist named Debbie, the minion trio use the same spellbook to summon a squid monster named Goomi, who is smaller than anticipated, but makes up for it with large roars that can scare sharks. Goomi directs the trio to a frozen fortress to unleash two sea monsters, Howard & Phillips, under the false pretense of starring in James’ movie when in reality, they intend to use the spellbook to unleash an orange multi eyed blob they call Eye-reen. Henry overhears this and when trying to tell James, the monsters capture him intending to trick James to film his sacrifice. Once Eye-reen is conjured by Goomi, chaos reigns. Dort sees the commotion and is presumed to flee, resulting in the rest of the minion tribe to fend for themselves. As James saves Henry from devoured by the blob monster, Dort would return with other minions and give them spacecrafts in order to shoot Eye-reen enough times for its body to turn to complete rock. Once that happens, James summons another spell to trap the other monsters back in the spellbook. Once the public praises Dort and the minions for their heroic deeds, James’ movie is able to happen thanks to Ed filming the whole battle. By the time Minions & Monsters is given critical acclaim in its world premiere, Dort has already started a family with Debbie. As Olivia concludes the story, it is revealed the whole plot and even the tour was part of James & Henry’s actual movie. The film ends in a post credit montage with the other minions testing the spellbook with Gru’s family.
THOUGHTS
If I’ve known anything about the Despicable Me franchise, it’s that Pierre Coffin will keep on making this thing thrive when he’s involved in the director’s chair apart from already voicing all the yellow munchkins. What I didn’t expect with the assist of writer Brian Lynch is how it’s the most creative one since the beginning. Why so? Because they go out of their way tributing decades of cinema. Before the monstrous climax that lets the animation peak, every Easter egg from the first two acts are more clever than parodied. Having a montage of classic Universal Studios logos? Check. Recreating Citizen Kane, The Horse in Motion and A Trip to the Moon? Sounds like a given but worth it. Having Metropolis part of the film museum? Awesome. Animated cameos of George Lucas & Charlie Chaplin? Hell yes. You even keep the ball rolling with not just the Cyclops going through a ringer of pain he steps into before the warlock and a mummy are victims to minion negligence, but I was laughing uncontrollably to Jesse Eisenberg putting his soul into Dort, who in turn is a parody to The Day the Earth Still. The whole time, you can’t take him serious as he comes off extremely pretentious in a quest for dominance until his heart unlocked when he wasn’t even looking for love. Zoey Deutch was sweet as Debbie because she matched Dort’s enthusiasm & fearlessness, thus sticking with him apart from finding whatever good that led to him defeating Eye-reen. It even felt so random for me to see Jeff Bridges voice the Bright Brothers since he doesn’t do that much in the 21st century. Nevertheless, he did a great job portraying one as the easygoing and the other being impulsively upset when some changes aren’t at his liking. Putting aside the supporting cast being memorable, I think the reason families are gonna watch this movie endlessly because apart from trusting the value of friendship, it teaches audiences to always have a passion for the things you can create. This is the case when we follow James who had the most relatable passion out there. While you can credit Christoph Waltz voicing Max as an affectionate friend that actually cared for what he wanted to do unlike Dick who was far more simple minded, Henry & Ed had his back best because they act out of loyalty in letting his dream have a chance to fruition, knowing every vision of his deserves to be seen. Since it’s a given that the minions are reckless beings, it made sense that their good intentions blew up from little to very big proportions they were lucky enough to defeat. Phil LaMarr & Bobby Moynihan were a solid pair in portraying Howard & Phillips as equally cunning beasts that were more concerned with ongoing dominance, but Trey Parker tops them in terms of being more manipulative to get things his way. Due to his small stature, he uses it to create false charisma that the minions would predictably fall for. Thankfully, the ruse was temporary and the threat was dealt with overnight. If James can still chase his dream with his friends after another life changing experience, then he proves anything is possible once you set your mind to it. I’ve given this movie a lot of due credit, but it does not excuse the multiple things that confused me upon rewatching. Like I brushed off the girl in the opening saying she doesn’t know the minions after realizing this is a movie within a movie, but how has James & Henry been in the same tribe for so long that they introduce themselves until after the Cyclops fires them? Of all the things they write on their script, I don’t think they’d lie of that and it’s crazy. And you know what, it’s on the warlock to trust the minions with the spellbook when he could’ve just put it away. It’s even on Max to cast minions for lead roles when background gigs are what could’ve avoided the language barrier. And of all continuity errors that bothered me most, it’s trying to figure out all the cameras were before the minions boarded the train. I am surprised Goomi and Howard & Phillips knew what a movie was so fast considering they were trapped for so long, but I’m more surprised Goomi didn’t summon Eye-reen sooner because that blob clearly gets the job done more than Howard & Phillips. Hell, he also could’ve given them a wink or a nod so that way they’d know he had Eye-reen rather than wait til the end of the day to tell them, which Henry conveniently overhears. And then again, if the Minions’ purpose was to serve evil leaders, Henry should relish the fact of Eye-reen being summoned. I know he wants James’ movie to happen, but this change of heart is more believable if the setting was after Gru tuned good. No one even overhears the commotion with Howard & Phillips destroying everything on set from the walls to building the decor. And if Goomi didn’t want Eye-reen to be undone, he should’ve destroyed the spellbook to prevent the minions from saving the day. Howard & Phillips didn’t even to try stop the spell when James sends them back and it’s ridiculous since they’re so big and could’ve stomped on all the minions. It’s even a surprise Debbie is not bothered of the minions sticking around for her date with Dort all day. I mean even for a kids movie, adults need space. Ignore these things, then you can still identify Minions & Monsters as the best kind of bombastic you want out of kids movies. If you still dig Illumination, see this now.
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