'Minions & Monsters' Is the Slapstick Madness This Franchise Should've Been All Along

Image via Illumination

This is the best, darkest, and most hilarious the Minions have ever been.

What if I told you there was a big Universal movie coming out in theaters this month, starring Oscar winners and all-time greats like Christoph Waltz and Jeff Bridges, telling a story about the fantastical history of Hollywood's golden age? You'd probably imagine something similar to Hail, Caesar!, The Artist, or even Singin' in the Rain, right? Believe it or not, that Hollywood saga with the loaded cast is a new Minions flick, and it stands out as the best film in the franchise by quite a wide margin.

Minions & Monsters is the seventh entry in the Despicable Me franchise that launched Illumination into the stratosphere back in 2010, and made the gibberish-speaking yellow creatures overnight pop culture icons. While some of the movies have had their moments, the franchise as a whole has been just... fine. It's easy to feel apathetic to the Minions movies at this point, because it has long felt as though they exist simply to sell toys, theme park tickets, and pajama pants. Now, along comes Minions & Monsters with enough heart and laughs to lap the entire franchise field in front of it, channeling the spirit of the Looney Tunes for a hysterical love letter to not just the movies, but also the beloved weirdos who make them.

What Is 'Minions & Monsters' About?

Almost entirely disconnected from the other Minions and Despicable Me films, Minions & Monsters follows a group of the titular creatures once again on their never-ending search for the best "Big Boss" to serve. While most of these Minions have a one-track mind for finding a leader, the duo of James and Henry tend to live with their heads in the clouds. These lovable pals are creators through and through, even when cast out for their visionary approach to life. When their desire to make the world a fuller and more wonderful place through the art of storytelling puts them at odds with their de-facto Minion supervisor, Dick, a brief fight ends up spilling over into a cowboy chase through the desert and, eventually, on a runaway train literally tearing apart the sets of Hollywood.

Set in the height of the silent film era, the Minions seemingly ruin a few takes from a director named Max (Christoph Waltz), who has to show that footage to the studio heads and explain what happened. Much to his surprise, the twin giants running the studio (both voiced by Jeff Bridges) think the slapstick antics of the Minions were genius, leading to them becoming the biggest stars of the era.

However, once sound is introduced to Hollywood and the time of Talking Pictures begins, the Minions' voices immediately make them a liability (in what is perhaps the funniest montage in the history of Illumination). They are cast out, until James and Henry get the idea to shoot a monster movie and revive their careers, which leads them to the summoning of a diabolical and extremely adorable Cthulu-lite creature named Goomi (South Park co-creator Trey Parker).

From there, things expectedly spiral out of control and the antics continue to become more ridiculous. As James, Henry, and their hard-of-hearing pal Ed (who is also the best Minion) attempt to create monster movie magic, there's an entire B-plot in which Dick leads another crew of Minions to what seems to be a loser in a robot suit named Dort (Jesse Eisenberg). There's no need to unpack that entire storyline here, but for the sake of hitting the highlights, Dort falls in love with a young Suffragette (Zoey Deutch) and the Minions accidentally become women's rights activists on their way to saving the entire human race.

The entire plot is ridiculous, but more than in any other Minions movie, it actually meshes perfectly with the tone and has full confidence in what it's trying to be from start to finish. The humor is shockingly dark for a kids movie, but it works because the film isn't trying to sell you a watered-down version of a Disney family story. This is more akin to Shrek in that many of the jokes are going to play better for the older members of the audience, and that it's a love-letter to the kinds of stories that inspired it.

There's a lot going on in Minions & Monsters, though its slapstick tone of vignettes and set pieces prevents it from feeling cohesive. It's a dark comedy, a loving homage to movie-making, and a tale of dedicated friendship. It's also a Minions movie that is completely aware of the franchise's place in entertainment, and actually weaves a story around that very narrative.

Writer-director Pierre Coffin and co-writer Bryan Lynch are veterans of the Despicable Me series, and the duo likely knows better than anybody out there where the franchise has been to this point. It seems they saw something more in the beloved Minions and decided to chart a new course for their future, using the franchise trajectory to do just that.

In this movie, the Minions take over Hollywood almost overnight, much like they did in the real world (albeit in a different time period). Almost as fast as they became superstars, they wore out their welcome, oversaturating the market to the point that people were sick of them. In order to rise back to prominence, the Minions turn to fresh ideas and unleash the wildest corners of their collective humor. That meta narrative really nails home its point in the film's final scene, proving that the creative team is fully in control of the narrative they're weaving.

Laugh-Out-Loud Funny From Start to Finish

There are moments where Minions & Monsters feels like an episode of Looney Tunes where Bugs, Daffy, and the rest of the crew were all turned into little yellow glob-people. Other times, it feels like an animated reenactment of Jackass. It's also not shy about wearing its South Park and Family Guy influences on its sleeve.

While it's still a children's movie at the end of the day, Minions & Monsters does everything it can to earn laughs from every member of the audience. There is potty humor aplenty, and sight gags designed to delight the little ones, but boy do they swing for the grown-up fences with some of these bits. From potentially the deadliest montage in PG-movie history to Star Wars creator George Lucas becoming literally trapped in the Hollywood system (with a cameo from the actual George Lucas, no less), Minions & Monsters covers just about every comedic base it finds. The first 40-45 minutes are packed with joke-a-minute sequences that my sides ached from laughter, a sensation I've never experienced from an Illumination movie before.

Minions & Monsters may not be everyone's cup of tea. It sees the threshold that makes you ask, "Is this too much?" written on the wall and proceeds to blast straight through it with the force of a bulldozer. But that kind of loud, in-your-face approach to comedy is what the Minions are supposed to be. Instead of simply sticking them and their ridiculous sensibilities into the standard structures of family films, Coffin and the team build Minions & Monsters around that abrasive comedy concept and create a story that actually feels like what the Minions should have been all along.

Minions & Monsters arrives in theaters on July 1st.

Release Date June 24, 2026

Runtime 90 minutes

Producers Chris Meledandri, Bill Ryan

Cast

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  Henry / James / Ed / Dick / The Minions (voice)

Pros & Cons

• A laugh-out-loud comedy that isn't afraid to get weird.
• There's so much love for movies, movie-making, and the history of Hollywood.
• These characters are far more memorable than anything since 'Despicable Me.'

• The humor is dark and sometimes a little shocking.
• Don't expect every kid to love it, even if it's a Minions movie.