So, they’re making a “Minions” movie.
And yes, it’s based on the “Despicable Me” legion of lemon colored villain servers who speak in phonemes and vocables and can still be understood by Gru nonetheless. But in this film, there is no Gru. Instead, we’re rewinding the species of affable henchmen thousands of years to join them on their journey of seeking out a villain to serve. It’s not the plot that sounds awful to me, but the fact that they’re kinda supportive characters. They work in “Despicable Me” because we’ve got Gru and the cute kids to balance it out. Their introduction works on a comedic timing level, but not as a 90 minute running gag. I’d say I’m just being judgmental, except for the fact that the trailer for the flick gives away basically the whole story.
I’ve seen this phenomena before (OnDemand does this shiz all the time and it pisses me off; I want a teaser – not a ten minute spoiler of the whole movie cut up and pieced back together with a voiceover narrative explaining a Wikipedia plot synopsis of everything I’m about to see). But the thing is, even with the annoying “giving it all away” trailers, if the movie’s got any spark to it, I’ll still wanna see the whole thing anyway. It’s like the bits I did see were just that good that I kinda still wanna watch the whole thing and be dazzled by whatever they didn’t spoil for me – because the cinematography looks cool, I like the actors, I heard the soundtrack was good, the jokes make me laugh, and so on. This trailer has none of those elements. It’s just these creatures who are too stupid to assist the bad guy they seek without accidentally murdering them or ruining their lives along the way. And then they get depressed because they know they’re doing a shitty job and they go on a quest.
A hero’s journey.
But since they don’t speak an intelligible language and are kind of uninteresting on their own, they break down one hero into three of ‘em (Kevin, Stuart, and Bob) in order to employ what looks like the same formula AquaTeen used: make one the Id, one the Ego, and one the Superego.
“Kevin’s on a quest.” (The Superego – voice of reason and higher thought.)
“Stuart’s going to eat this banana.” (The Id – base and animal desires.)
“Bob’s afraid.” (The Ego – fear and identity-sense.)
I’m not knocking this formula. I’ve seen it before in movies and cartoons and enjoyed the end result when it’s finessed with peripheral entertainment accessories. But when you’ve got nothing else like good jokes or good visuals to distract me, it just feels contrived. Maybe I’m just judging a book by it’s cover. But – to be fair -they sure spent a lot of effort on the cover if they didn’t want me to do exactly that. As detailed as they made this trailer, I feel like if there WERE something more interesting happening in this minion reprise prequel, then they had plenty’a time to squeeze it in there.
All that said, they do kinda squeeze something alluding to “interesting” in – at the very end. Because everyone loves a good story about someone on a quest while they’re out of their element. Knowing that, they borrowed the “Dark Shadows” narrative and (as the end scene there shows), have these immortal banana fanatics entering the Big Apple in the late 60’s. And subsequently being as confused by things like fire hydrants as Barnabus Collins was by hippies and Karen Carpenter and television sets. I think that part was supposed to be the big draw –the familiar city in the midst of a historical milestone era, accompanied by a star studded lineup at the end. But if they couldn’t even show any micro-scenes of the characters that go along with those big names for the almost three minutes I had to watch it, that probably means they trollin’.
What do you think?
Anyone else get the feeling this’ll be the rough industrial toilet paper equivalent of entertainment?
Like you just watch it ‘cause it’s there and someone else bought it?
Even though it makes you uncomfortable the whole time?
Or am I just being too cynical?