How many more times can we hear the words Banana or Papaya be said in a made up language on a big screen? However i am here at an adults only showing of Minions & Monsters to see if its still got some magic & how this ties in to the rest of the despicable me movies.

As i said at the beginning this was an adults only 7:30 screening. There were some familys with older teenage kids but no little running about kids. However i was a little shocked that there was only like about 40 of us in my screening, im guessing it is mainly for kids still.

Trailers, the cat in the hat, pawoatrol, some weird msgic trailer & moana (still shocked ive hardly seen any trialers for this at all).

& then the film started… well that was a change up.

This is a sentence i really didnt think id ever type in my life, but this film had a discount count bin face & it made me laugh a lot. If you know about UK politics at the moment you will know there is a guy trying to get elected to parliament who wheres a bin on his head who always stand against a leader or someone to make a point. He is currently as i type the favourite to win the Clacton election. This film had their own intergalactic “bad guy” who some of the minions went with as they always seek out evil leaders & he was well basically the count. I laughed at that a lot. Its perfect timing.

As a film nerd, this movie did a lot of service to old school cinema that i was not expecting & i was laughing & doing the DiCaprio meme at most of them going oh i get that reference. I was not expecting there to be so many or for it to go so deep about some of it. This is a kids spin off film which is not aimed at us. I get animation is for everyone however to be 7 films in & get these reference was like oh okay. It was the best part of the film.

The introduction of a new tribe of minions was good, it was refreshing & seeing how they were different to the main group that are Grus. I likes James he was the best, but at the end it does still come down to banana papaya doesnt it & slap stick humour. I mean i get it i do. This main audience is kids. But there are only so many times you can see the same joke.

Act 3 was extremely rushed to get to the end, & also the threat of that main evil monster was not that life or death, the minions have been in more peril before this for sure. Im not asking for high stakes but it wasnt anything like hang on a second. There has been more minion peril in other movies. This seemed to tame it down. Yea was a little bit meh considering it had been building up for a very long time.

Poor George Lucas. I mean i can only imagine, but knowing hollywood they would make someone like that be at a display or museum for ages to bring people in.

Christoph Waltz as always was on form. Honestly a little bit wasted, but i get it. But again some of his lines were clearly for the film nerds & not kids beacuse im sure he quoted inglorious. It was a little meta at points.

The film at points forgot it had narration which really gets on my nerves, either stick to it or dont. I know its only minions, but sell it or not. Dont just suddenly remember it at a certain point because you need to fill for 3 minutes.

This film is meant to be set in the golden age of hollywood, but there were some points of the film (especially that flat mate) that felt straight out of now & not the past, which was a little off putting. Keep it in the correct period please movie. It felt like it got lazy sometimes.

It does refresh the format a little & means they can make more & more of these films, however its nothing to be like this is exceptional. There are worse animated films out there for sure but you can do much much better with stuff we have had this year than you could watching this. I guess the banana minion formular is going to stick around a little bit longer.