Review of MINIONS & MONSTERS: Movie-Making Mayhem

July 4, 2026

Once upon a time, there were several tribes of Minions who roamed the Earth looking for the perfect villain whom they can serve.  However, because of their inherent naughtiness and clumsiness, the Minions would wind up killing the villains they served.  In one such tribe, there was a Minion named James, who was very much inclined to the art of drawing and telling stories. His best friends were the mischievous Henry and the hearing-impaired Ed. 

One day in 1927, the Minions saw a bank robber who was escaping by train and chased him. It turned out that this was a film being shot by a director named Max (Christoff Waltz). The producers, the Bright Brothers (Jeff Bridges) loved the Minions and made them superstars, until they could not do talkies. It was then that James had the idea of making his own film called "Minions and Monsters," even when only Henry and Ed supported him.

This flashback story of how Minions got into vintage Hollywood silent films was done via bookend sequences of a guide Olivia (Allison Janney) touring her guests around an exhibit called "Magic of Hollywood." While I am not a fan of the Minions, their antics and gibberish language, I appreciated all the call outs to the history of cinema in this one. Cinephiles, especially fans of the classic Hollywood films, will enjoy seeing all these delightful Easter eggs, with Minions somehow integrated into them.  

The direct tributes started in the opening credits, with scenes from "Horse in Motion" (1887) to "A Trip to the Moon" (1902). The man hanging from a clock was from "Safety Last" (1923). Asking Sam the pianist to "play it again" was from "Casablanca" (1942). The "rosebud" scene was from "Citizen Kane" (1941). Charlie Chaplin going through the gears of a machine was from "Modern Times" (1936). The robot Dort (Jesse Eisenberg) was likely a reference to the alien robot Gort in the film "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951). 

The sorcerer scenes were likely from "Fantasia" (1940). The train scenes may refer to "The Great Train Robbery" (1903) or "The General" (1927). The noir scene likely referred to "The Maltese Falcon" (1941). The shark scene referred to "Jaws" (1974). In Olivia's exhibit, we see more recent films like "E.T." (1982) and "The Matrix" (1999), movie monsters like "The Mummy" (1932) and "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1953), and film directors like Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, and Francis Ford Coppola (in a speaking cameo). 

As for the titular "Monsters," at first there was only one small green spherical creature with the tiny wiggly tentacles above his mouth named Goomi (Trey Parker) whom the Minions conjured out of the spell book. However, he would be joined by his gang of sea monsters Howard (Phil LaMarr) and Phillips (Bobby Moynihan), whose names referred to horror writer H.P. Lovecraft; and their spectacularly destructive orange slimy gelatinous mass with multiple eyes called Irene, that called to mind the classic movie monster "The Blob" (1958). 

I am still not exactly a fan of the Minions and their chaotic brand of foolishness, but I did enjoy this loving tribute to the Golden Age of Hollywood as offered by the Minions creator, director and voice Pierre Coffin. 7/10