Rambunctious Minions and Monsters Unleash an Ingeniously Hysterical Cinematic Celebration
It’s a cliché to say that something “wasn’t on my bingo card” when you get genuinely surprised by it. A television show. The outcome of a sporting event. A book. And, of course, a movie. It’s an easy out to make this claim when you’ve had low expectations going in; sort of a halfhearted endorsement of the finished product, if you will. A backhanded compliment.
With that in mind, and while I always try to keep an open mind before watching a film, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit my interest in Minions & Monsters, the third solo adventure for the banana-yellow mischief makers made famous by the Despicable Me quartet, was fairly low. I despised the first entry of these spin-off adventures and thought the second was, at best, relatively serviceable. It’s safe to say I didn’t think going in that this latest installment would be anything to crow about. At least not vociferously.
I was wrong. Minions & Monsters is, unquestionably, the best animated yarn featuring these characters yet, and that includes all four of the Despicable Me efforts. More, it’s almost certainly going to end up being one of the best animated comedies of 2026. Heck, I’ll go one step further and say that, by the time December rolls around, this might be one of the best films I watched throughout the entire year. Period.
This thing is basically plotless. Where the first Minions tried to introduce why the yellow troublemakers exist in the first place, and the second, Minions: The Rise of Gru, was a prequel showing how this gang and the antihero of the Despicable Me pictures became inseparable, this capper to the trilogy loves movies. That’s it. There’s not too much more to it. And, not only does it love movies, it loves making movies, and, as much as it loves making movies, it loves people coming together to watch movies collectively even more. Minions & Monsters is a celebration of over a century of moviemaking, and it’s a pretty darn funny one at that.
What writers and franchise regulars Pierre Coffin (who returns to direct for a fourth time and continues to voice all of the Minions) and Brian Lynch have delivered here is a Blazing Saddles meets classic Universal Monsters mashup with a dash of Babylon, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Singin’ in the Rain thrown in for good measure. The entire enterprise is an unhinged farce that takes viewers back to the early days of silent film and up again to the present day (be on the lookout for George Lucas). It’s one sight and verbal gag after another (including maybe the best Citizen Kane joke I’ve ever seen), some of them pushing the boundaries of good taste (including phallic objects inadvertently making their way into multiple rear ends), others such clean-spirited fun I kept waiting for a Care Bear to make a surprise cameo.
At the center of it all are three Minions: James, Henry, and Ed. The first two are basically Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in yellow cosplay. The third is essentially Harpo Marx, using ASL to communicate with the other Minions and can be counted on to excel at every sort of pratfall and sight gag a viewer can imagine (along with several more no one in their right mind would have thought of at all). For reasons best not spoiled in this review, the trio wants to make a monster movie. With that in mind, what better way to get the most bang for your production buck than to get honest-to-goodness kaiju to star in it? With the aid of a jolly green helper nicknamed “Goomi” (voiced by Trey Parker) — aka “The Deceiver” — real monsters are exactly what James, Henry, and Ed are going to get.
Chaos naturally ensues, but that’s par for the course for these Minions. What was shocking, at least to me, was not only how funny much of this was, but how intelligently inspired this carnage turned out to be. Coffin and Lynch achieve an almost vintage Mel Brooks level of comedic sophomoric virtuosity, gleefully lampooning 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s sci-fi and creature features as much as they rhapsodically celebrate them. The jokes come one right after another. The references to classic Hollywood are fast and furious. Coffin and Lynch never let up, everything building to a bewildering conclusion of Ed Wood meets Busby Berkeley meets Steven Spielberg meets Ray Harryhausen meets Friz Freleng insanity that had me almost levitating out of my theater seat.
The best sequence, however, arrives almost at the midpoint. The Minions believe they’ve discovered a new bad guy to support, only to learn they’re in the middle of a chaotic action section being shot by silent movie maestro Max (Christoph Waltz) for powerful Hollywood studio moguls Frank and Elwood (both played by Jeff Bridges). It’s a frenetic, anything-goes sequence that includes references to 1903’s The Great Train Robbery, 1923’s Safety Last!, and 1928’s Steamboat Bill, Jr., and that’s naming only the three most obvious pulls. The scene runs maybe 10 full minutes, and it’s glorious, everyone in my promo audience — from the smallest child to the most unemotional adult — all happily chortling together as one.
Ultimately, that is what Minions & Monsters wants more than anything else. The filmmakers made this animated jolt of anarchic madness to be watched communally, in darkness, and, most importantly, in a theater. Coffin and Lynch use the massive popularity of their pint-sized characters to remind viewers what cinema can achieve and how much fun it is to discover these delights together. So, no, I did not have any of this on my bingo card, and I don’t care if saying so is a cliché because it’s also the truth. Now, excuse me while I buy a ticket and watch it again.
Film Rating: 3½ (out of 4)
