Saturday Star

TAT WOLFEN

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THE OPENING sequences of this frantic caper are its finest moments: the banana-craving Minions are placed in historical context, dating right back to that primordial soup; that sludge of bacteria and other interestin­g goodies to which all creatures crawling on the face of the Earth can trace their ancestry.

We learn that the Minions, as a race, have always gravitated towards evil, tyrannical and/or autocratic leaders (a perfect fit for Zimbabwe or South Africa!).

Their leaders, however, have a habit of being exterminat­ed by other, greater evils, and the Minions end up in an existentia­l wilderness; purposeles­s and depressed. This, then, is the scriptwrit­ers’ device for explaining how these critters came to work in a world of crookednes­s, and ultimately, for Despicable Me’s Gru. So it’s a prequel, okay?

In order to simplify the story (and, undoubtedl­y, save on having to animate hundreds of individual Minions), the writers have three Minions leave the dejected tribe in order to go out into the world – pioneers in search of a new overlord. The Minions upon whose shoulders the hope of a nation rests, are Kevin, the tallest of the trio and probably the smartest; Stuart, a one-eyed guitar-player; and Bob, the baby of team who’s always lugging his wee teddy with him.

Bob, shown in the picture above, is ridiculous­ly, outrageous­ly, heart- meltingly cute.

For me, the prologue still doesn’t explain how this dear and harmless race of one-or-two-eyed yellow-folk end up working for bad guys.

It’s one thing to be happy to toil under a tyrant, and quite another to assist someone who does horrid things to other people.

I believe that responsibl­e parents will have to do some explaining to small kids, as to why the Minions gleefully assist crooks in a bank robbery, for example. That moral grievance aside: After a brief ex- posure to the above-mentioned career path, they end up at a crime expo (yup; everyone’s having career expos these days!). This is where they win the opportunit­y of a lifetime (for criminals, that is) of working for the glamorousl­y sinister Scarlett Overkill, voiced by Sandra Bullock. Her plan is to steal Queen Elizabeth II’s crown. This is all happening circa the late 1960s, I should mention, which gives the film-makers the opportunit­y to assemble a smashing soundtrack.

The story veers off in a number

 ??  ?? ALL IN THE FAMILY: The Minions’ first exposure to a life of crime is via this ordinarylo­oking family… of villains.
ALL IN THE FAMILY: The Minions’ first exposure to a life of crime is via this ordinarylo­oking family… of villains.

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