Minions & Monsters Review: Hollywood Is The Perfect Playground For The Minions

Seven films into the "Despicable Me" franchise and three prequels deep into the outings strictly following everyone's favorite banana-complected henchmen, it would be conceivable to say there's nothing left to do with the Minions. Sure, they sell tons of toys and they suit ready-made fast food marketing ploys better than most of their cartoon peers. (Drive by a Wendy's right now and see if your car doesn't Tokyo drift into the drive-thru line of its own volition to order a pair of those Banana Frosty Swirls. I dare you!) But what else is there for them to do on screen?

"Minions & Monsters" answers that by delivering a strangely sincere and hauntingly beautiful ode to the dawn of moviemaking in Hollywood, as much a shrine to a litany of monster focused motion pictures as the industry of picture making itself. Series originator and voice of the Minions Pierre Coffin is back in the director's chair, speaking "minionese" with aplomb and asserting that perhaps his darling little protagonists possess the kind of malleability necessary to keep making movies about them forever. 

Back in 2022, Damien Chazelle's "Babylon" flopped hard and was not the critical success some hoped it would be. Yet here in 2026, it's hard not to imagine him watching this wishing he had his hands on these cute, little yellow fellas.

"Minions & Monsters" follows a different tribe of the Minions than we're used to seeing with Gru (Steve Carell), and it gives their typical modus operandi a useful wrinkle that reaps real dividends. The Minions usually build their entire lives around seeking out evil leaders to follow and support, a reason for being that's always been playfully at odds with their relative adorableness. But this little tale is about a pair of Minions who break away from that nefarious pursuit. Told through a framing device at a film history museum, we're told a story about James and Henry, and their rightful place in the annals of cinematic achievement. 

This particular tribe goes through multiple failures trying to align themselves with the right big boss. They accidentally become early Hollywood darlings after getting involved in a daring train chase that turns out to be a film directed by Max (voiced by Christoph Waltz). A pair of producing brothers, both voiced by Jeff Bridges, then cast the Minions in a series of films during the silent era. This section features beautiful homages to Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and the like, but when the talkies come around, a bunch of cute, chaotic creatures who speak "minionese" can't hack it. 

The rest of the tribe, led by traditionalist Dick, gives up Hollywood and teams up with Dort (Jesse Eisenberg), an alien robot who could be the boss of their dreams if he wasn't falling for Debbie (Zoey Deutch), a suffragette, sending the Minions on an unexpected journey to get women the right to vote. But James, having been shown to be an artsy sort from the jump, is bitten by the motion picture bug and seeks to helm an independent monster movie that will get them back into the audience's good graces. Henry has always been on the same page as James, willing to do whatever it takes to help him exercise his artistic vision. Unfortunately, in trying to make his dream creature feature, James gets involved with Goomi (Trey Parker), a mischievous and cutesy monster who perverts their wholesome plans to suit his own nefarious aims. 

Along the way, Pierre Coffin stages some of the franchise's best gags and most gorgeously realized sequences, weaving in tons of meta humor and bits of real film history through the prism of bombastic, Minion-y action. Some of the non-movie related subplots fail to live up to the brilliance of the main bits, but those are executed so well, it's hardly worth quibbling about.

When the film began, several of the children in my screening sang along to the Universal Pictures theme as the iconic globe started to spin. They were probably not, say, burgeoning cinephiles showing love to one of the last remaining studios friendly to auteurs and protective of the theatrical window. But then the globe began time traveling through the studio's history, landing in black and white at the dawn of the movie house and the turn of the 20th century. Perhaps it's silly to say, but providing such an indelible love letter to the industry that some have been saying was dying since its inception feels like a net good. 

"Minions & Monsters" is a big, bright, flashy cartoon meant to pacify children and manipulate their parents into purchasing merch, but within that framework, it houses so much genuine adoration for the art of cinema. There's a non zero chance decades from now, our next generation of storytellers might be recounting in interviews how the Minions helped them discover the Lumière brothers and Georges Méliès much the way The Smashing Pumpkins did for unsuspecting millennials seeing the "Tonight, Tonight" video on MTV. It's just such a pleasant surprise that something that seemed like it would be disposable and repetitive could come out of left field and please the crowd on a deeper, more nourishing level like this. 

After feeling this way when I reviewed "Despicable Me 4," I think it's fully and finally time to let Gru ride off into the sunset and only bring the Minions themselves out when there's a worthwhile idea to explore through their sweetness. Steve Carell might have some kind of contract stipulation that ensures we'll be getting "Despicable Me 5" before long, but this might be the best film in the entire franchise. It would be rad if everyone learned from that for the future.

"Minions & Monsters" premieres on July 1.