Awful ‘Minions’ makes us appreciate Pixar movies

Film Title: Minions (L to R) STUART, BOB and KEVIN hitch a ride with Scarlet Overkill (voiced by SANDRA BULLOCK), the first ever female super-villain, in "Minions", Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment's comedy adventure in which the Minions try to save all Minionkind...from annihilation. less Film Title: Minions (L to R) STUART, BOB and KEVIN hitch a ride with Scarlet Overkill (voiced by SANDRA BULLOCK), the first ever female super-villain, in "Minions", Universal Pictures and Illumination ... more Photo: Universal Pictures Photo: Universal Pictures Image 1 of / 20 Caption Close Awful ‘Minions’ makes us appreciate Pixar movies 1 / 20 Back to Gallery

Not every co-star is worth a whole movie, and the minions, as it turns out, weren’t. A spin-off of the “Despicable Me” movies, in which the little yellow fellows were the villain’s henchmen, “Minions” is a pointless, frenetic exercise with tired jokes and weak sequences piled one on top of the other, until feature length is finally reached and everybody can go home.

When you look at the ambition, imagination and emotional range of a Pixar effort like “Inside Out,” “Minions” looks like a visit to animation’s bad old days. Watching it is like watching the product of some hellish game of free association, in which various people came up with ideas and no one was allowed to say, “But wait, that’s lousy.” All art is, in a sense, a give and take between impulse and control, but “Minions” is all impulses, mostly bad ones.

It’s not funny. It’s not not funny. It’s more like a mess. At one point, one of the minions is crowned King of England (don’t ask) and must make a speech. He says his name, “King Bob!” and the crowd cheers. Then he starts talking, and the audience is confused, because minions don’t speak English. After a few moments, sensing he is losing his audience, he concludes by saying, “King Bob!” again, and the audience cheers again. That’s supposed to be hilarious.

A moment later, “My Generation” is blaring over the sound track, for no reason at all, except that the movie happens to be set in London in 1968.

There are odd musical references throughout “Minions,” and the impression that comes through is that audiences are supposed to derive pleasure from them for no reason but that they’re unexpected. For example, the minions break into a gibberish version of “Make ’Em Laugh” from “Singin’ in the Rain.” The Box Tops song “The Letter” and the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” underscore respective scenes, which are animated slapstick and have nothing to do with the music.

A narrated sequence at the start tells us who the minions are — yellow creatures whose entire mission in life is to serve an evil master. The gimmick, a potentially funny one, is that they’re so incompetent that they inevitably end up undermining their masters by accident — such as waking up Dracula in the afternoon.

Fine. Cute idea. But “Minions” is so poorly conceived that, despite that set-up (unnecessary, as it turns out), nothing like that happens in the movie.

Minions ★ Quick take: 3-D? Try no-D

To talk about the story of “Minions” is to make the movie seem more linear than it is. Basically, it’s about three of these little creatures who go into the world, looking for someone evil to serve, and at a villains’ convention they meet Scarlett Overkill (Sandra Bullock), who fancies herself the most evil woman in the world. She sends the minions out on a mission to steal the crown jewels from Queen Elizabeth II, and the adventures go on from there.

“Minions” has the same problem as “Despicable Me,” only worse. The protagonists are ciphers, and their goal is unworthy and of little interest. The bottom line is that the filmmakers are working with nothing — no characters to speak of, no interpersonal relationships, no story with any suspense or capacity to engage, and no script with any humor or wit. What can they do?

They do two things. The first is that they create lots of commotion that they hope might be confused for forward motion. Someone is always chasing someone. Bozo the Clown, at one point, is chasing the minions, as he juggles old-fashioned anarchist bombs. Who knew that Bozo went over to the dark side?

The second thing is that they get one or two incidental things right, little things that don’t really matter, except they’re a slight diversion if you happen to get stuck in this movie and can’t find the exit. The animators’ rendering of the British people is clever, as in the drawing of various types you might see in the London underground.

Incidentally, the 3-D glasses make the picture dark and murky, and 3-D adds nothing. Those who insist on seeing it should probably see it in two dimensions, though for this one zero dimensions is the best bet.

Running time: 91 minutes