Minions: The Rise of Gru

In the meanwhile, The Vicious 6, the most powerful organized crime group in the world, has stolen a Chinese amulet but lost its leader, Wild Knuckles. Now the organization has a vacancy, and the ex-boss has a wish for revenge. And Gru… They don’t know yet they want Gru. Gru doesn’t know how much he needs his Minions. This is a sequel to Minions (2015) and a prequel to Despicable Me (2010). Set in 1976, it offers a mixture of 1970s cinema trends: Chinatown action scenes, martial arts, James Bond-like title sequence, gadgets, hippie hitchhikes, and disasters in the air. Yet the presence of minions that make their trademark jolly mess of everything somehow makes the movie solid.

Graphics

The visuals are even greater than in Minions (2015), let alone the first installments. The scale gets bigger, the town gets more populated, and the characters livelier. The minions are now more individual; though there’s no Big Kevin now, someone much smaller appears. Overall, it’s a high-quality animation of 2022, which avoids the uncanny valley effect by being intendedly caricature styled.

Sound

What we love the most about any Minion movie is the Minionese they speak. This time there are more Spanish influences in their language that sound just as funny as in the last movie’s Mazel Tov. Gru is still voiced by Steve Carell, sounding recognizable. If some villains look like 1980s stars like Van Damme or Lundgren, oh, so do they sound, being voiced by exactly who they spoof. What’s to adore the most about this movie is its rich OST, full-flavored disco and funk.

Recommendations

A great summer hit not only for the original Despicable Me fans or kids but to everyone who loves quality animation or nostalgic love letters to the 1970s.