The yellow guys’ revisionist history

New on circuit: MINIONS 3-D Voice cast: Sandra Bullock, Michael Keaton, John Hamm, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan, Jennifer Saunders, Geoffrey Rush Director: Brian Lynch Rating: ★★★ ✩ of insane directions, during which Bob even ascends to the British throne for accidently extracting the sword of Excalibur from the stone, in a moment of self-defence. Hooray and huzzah! QEII gamely sets off to the local pub, there to partake of a few pints with the lads…

The action is so frenetic, and the story so insane, that I seriously wondered whether the scriptwriters had been doing pyschoactive substances. Some of the narrative turns are effective, while others fall flat – much as it is with the merciless barrage of gags. It’s as if the writing team had decided to throw every possible trick at us, so that the working bits would make us laugh… and the devil take the hindmost.

In closing, I should mention that I’m a “closing credit geek”, one of those serious and dedicated moviegoers who sits through the end credit roll while patrons around him flee for the exits as if someone had yelled “fire!”.

Apart from finding out interesting trivia during this part of a film, it’s also often the point at which some of the movie’s best songs or music are played – and a place in which “gifts” are put out to reward the geeks. In this case, we’re treated to a hilarious sequence in which the film’s characters mess about madly with the 3-D format. But where are most of the audience’s kids? Gone.