Minions: The rise of Gru Review Roundup

Illumination Entertainment's mega-popular, mega-rich Despicable Me franchise was scheduled to keep trucking in 2021 with a brand new prequel. Then...COVID happened. Now, after waiting another agonizing year to see the origin story of Gru (The franchise's main supervillain) and how the minions began serving him, the film is finally releasing. So does the latest film add to the franchise's rising popularity? Or is it a despicable watch? Here's what the critics had to say: ​

AV CLUB (Todd Gilchrist)
'The 1970s setting gives the filmmakers an opportunity to recruit modern artists to record covers of classics like “Funkytown” (St. Vincent) and “Hollywood Swinging” (Brockhampton), bridging the gap between past and present, adult and child. Ultimately, The Rise Of Gru exerts a negligible impact on the Minions’ canonical journey. If nothing else, the film serves as a reminder of the characters’ cartoonish charms, both literally and thematically, and their transcendent appeal.

For the full review please visit here.

EMPIRE MAGAZINE (Olly Richards)
'If plot has never been a particular strong point of these movies, they’ve always been very good at silly incidental jokes. There are some terrific throwaway gags here, not least in the names of members of the Vicious 6: an evil Viking is known as Svengeance (Dolph Lundgren); Nun Chuck (Lucy Lawless) is a spooky nun who splits her crucifix into weapons; and Jean-Claude Van Damme voices a lobster-limbed baddie called Jean Clawed. Kyle Balda, director of the first Minions and Despicable Me 3, has a lot of fun with the film’s 1970s setting, from towering hairdos to a disco soundtrack to evil lairs and Roger Moore-era Bond aesthetic vehicles. This is just straightforward fun. It’s unlikely to win over anybody unmoved by the previous movies and likely to deliver exactly what you’re expecting if you’ve enjoyed everything so far.


For the full review please visit here.

THE GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw)
'For me, the Gru/Minions franchise never really ascended to the inspirational heights that Pixar periodically attained, and its finest hour was probably showcasing Pharrell Williams’s hit song Happy on the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack album. Although the character of Gru is mildly funny, the minions are unfunny without him and have never convincingly attained spin-off hero status. This is another of those intellectual property concepts whose trademarked quirky voices and characters should be laid to rest.'

For the full review please visit here.

VARIETY (Peter Bebruge)
'This overly familiar franchise could use a chapter where misguided Gru really does manage to be evil for a time. Instead, everything here is in service of either a laugh or an easy emotional reaction (Balda pulls the Puss in Boots trick of making the Minions’ eyes real big when they’re trying to get their way). Six months into 2022, it’s the funniest film Hollywood has produced thus far. Audiences know what to expect, and Illumination delivers, offering another feel-good dose of bad behavior.'

For the full review please visit here.

FORBES (Scott Mendelson)
'The Rise of Gru only exists to create arbitrary and needless connections between the first Minions and the first Despicable Me. Minions ended with the title yellow goons being essentially adopted by a young Gru, and nothing in The Rise of Gru justifies this fill-in-the-nonexistent-blanks storytelling. Not to pick on Star Wars, but this prequel/sequel aligns with Disney+’s recently concluded Obi-Wan Kenobi show in how it answers questions nobody asked and connects dots that needed little connection. It’s visually creative, occasionally funny and kid-targeted for sure. But even my kids argued that it needed less Gru and more Minions.

For the full review please visit here.

​BIG KEN TALKS (VIDEO REVIEW) 

In the end, the film amassed a critical score of 69% from 26 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Not the freshest of scores (especially compared to the first two movies in the franchise), but it seems to have the usual funny and wacky charm of the minions in abundance.​  

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