MINIONS & MONSTERS (2026)

A tour of a Hollywood studio led by guide Olivia (Allison Janney) ends with Henry and James, two Minions—the gabbling yellow pill-shaped creatures (all voiced by Pierre Coffin) whom we first saw in Despicable Me (2010)—whom Olivia claims “saved” Old Hollywood. Cut to a Minion tribe serving several masters, typically ending with Henry and James sabotaging them through their antics, before they come to Hollywood and are mistaken for performers after disrupting a film set. Gifted a camera by director Max (Christoph Waltz), James decides to make a monster movie based on his drawings. Assisted by Henry, James summons Goomie (Trey Parker) to fill his cast—a pint-sized Cthulhu with designs of his own…

Minions & Monsters is surprisingly fun. I think the Minions are what the Despicable Me franchise was always meant to evolve into. Freed from the restraints of standard kids’ movie tropes and structures, they’re closer to Looney Tunes productions. The plot of this one is frequently nonsensical in its particulars—a robot romances a suffragette, for goodness’ sake (that’s a whole subplot I didn’t mention above)—but in the best, zany cartoon way. And the theme of Old Hollywood is splendidly done, chock-a-block with nods for film buffs. Toss in Lovecraftian lore? You’ve got me.

There’s a charming wackiness mixed with genuine film-buff references woven throughout the movie, blending genres like horror and science fiction with the black-and-white era slapstick of the Steamboat Willie variety. The jokes and nods come so thick and fast that it’s actually worth watching more than once to catch everything you missed, like a parody film from the days when those weren’t absolute junk. In fact, if you’re looking for a parody-style film, I’d vastly recommend seeing Minions & Monsters over Scary Movie (2026) this summer; the cartoon is so much more engaged with what it’s parodying, more amusing, and strung together with a narrative through-line than the frankly embarrassing latest Wayans brothers picture.

It’s a miracle that Illumination managed to get its name attached to a movie this good. Founded in 2007 by Chris Meledandri, the studio produces a vast majority of product that is junk. In fact, I might be willing to go out on a limb and say that apart from the Despicable Me movies and their Minions-themed derivatives, it’s all junk. Apart from the relentlessly bland Mario movies, the films from its stable are largely low-rent animal pictures (Hop, Migration), mixed in with a couple of bad-to-middling Dr Seuss titles (The Lorax, The Grinch).

The Minions movies are like diamonds in the very, very rough. As cultural objects, they’ve led a peculiar life over the past sixteen years. Debuting in Despicable Me, of which they were the breakout stars, they were quickly and inevitably overexposed, their likenesses adorning as much merchandise as they could be slapped on. They then became notorious as the unlikely stars of boomer memes shared by everyone’s aunt. There was a time on Facebook when you couldn’t move for stills of Minions attached to some weirdly conservative sentiment or non-joke like, “My generation went home when the streetlights came on!”

Their first film as stars was Minions (2015), followed by Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) and now Minions & Monsters. According to their lore, their abiding goal is to serve villains, and they travel the Earth in search of their next “big boss”. It’s a testament to director Coffin’s vocal abilities that he can create distinguishable personalities for the yellow Tic-Tacs. I never once confused Henry with James, or Dick (their aptly named, unpopular leader), or Edd (a deaf Minion who helps them out).

All of the voice acting here is either great or good. Parker adopts a childlike voice similar to his South Park schtick, which really works for Goomie, the little Cthulhu who has shades of Cartman in his inflections. Waltz really works as an Old Hollywood director, Max being a clear nod (if you’re in the know) to the real-life Austrian-German Erich von Stroheim, who made the silent classic Greed (1924). Minions & Monsters could only have been made by filmmakers with a deep love and knowledge of the period and genre films. It takes as one of its plot points the transition from silent films to sound, subtly satirising how this jump in technology ended careers when once-beloved actors revealed they had less than matinee-idol voices.

Many nods are made to the era of silent comedy, with riffs on Charlie Chaplin films like Modern Times (1936) in a scene where the Minions travel between cogs in a giant machine, and a recreation of the famous Buster Keaton gag where a man survives a house’s facade falling on top of him. There’s an argument to be made that adults will get more from this Minions movie than children.

Along with the Old Hollywood themes, it includes the Cthulhu mythos of HP Lovecraft, the pre-eminent 1920s horror writer—not just with Goomie, but also a couple of friends he brings along the way who look like creatures or alien gods from stories such as The Shadow Over Innsmouth (1936) and At the Mountains of Madness (1936). One particularly memorable scene pays homage to silent film chases as a squid-like monster pursues Henry around a studio backlot. The homages start almost as soon as the film does, with the Universal logo melting into old moviemaking styles.

The animation is bright and lively and the plot has a pleasantly freewheeling quality to it, reminiscent of the type of storytelling you might find in works like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or the tales of Terry Pratchett: genre-savvy, comedic sci-fi and fantasy material. It works so well as a parody film that the temptation as a reviewer is to just list gags and bits. I’ll try to abstain so your entertainment remains (mostly) fresh. Suffice to say, the yellow Tic-Tacs are back, and they’re ready for their close-up.

USA | 2026 | 90 MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Pierre Coffin.
writers: Brian Lynch & Pierre Coffin.
voices: Pierre Coffin, Trey Parker, Allison Janney, Christoph Waltz, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeff Bridges, Zoey Deutch, Bobby Moynihan & Phil LaMarr.