Few franchises have turned pure, unapologetic silliness into box-office gold as efficiently as Illumination’s Minions, and Minions: The Rise of Gru is the chapter where that formula clicked into overdrive.

It rewinds the Despicable Me saga to a pint-sized Gru, an aspiring supervillain still in short trousers, flanked by the babbling yellow horde who treat his every diabolical scheme as the best day of their lives. Here the Minions aren’t sidekicks — they are the engine of the whole machine.

A candy-colored 1970s caper

Directed by Kyle Balda alongside co-directors Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val, the film dives headfirst into a disco-era playground of lava lamps, vinyl, kung-fu and bell-bottoms. Illumination’s animation is bright, elastic and relentlessly kinetic; this isn’t Pixar’s emotional depth, and it isn’t trying to be — it is comic timing fired at the screen like a confetti cannon, with a fresh gag roughly every ten seconds.

The voice cast is a playground of its own. Steve Carell’s nasal, faintly Eastern-European Gru anchors the chaos; Pierre Coffin once again voices every last Minion; and the rogues’ gallery lends the slapstick real star wattage — Taraji P. Henson’s Belle Bottom, Michelle Yeoh‘s Master Chow, Alan Arkin’s grizzled Wild Knuckles, plus Jean-Claude Van Damme, Lucy Lawless, Dolph Lundgren, Danny Trejo and Julie Andrews as Gru’s mother.

Why it works

It is formula, and it knows it. But the gags land, the pace never sags across a brisk 87 minutes, and the film delivers exactly the feel-good anarchy its audience showed up for — with a welcome streak of mischief that the more sanitized corners of family animation tend to iron out. There is no grand emotional reach here, no reinvention; just a confident, well-built comedy that knows precisely what it is.

More of the same, executed with genuine craft and zero pretension — and on a wet afternoon with the kids, that is very often exactly the point. It became one of 2022’s biggest hits for a reason.

Cast & crew

Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) — Director: Kyle Balda; co-directors: Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val. Screenplay: Matthew Fogel. Music: Heitor Pereira. Voices: Steve Carell, Pierre Coffin, Taraji P. Henson, Michelle Yeoh, Alan Arkin, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Julie Andrews. A production of Illumination and Universal Pictures. Running time: 87 minutes.