In the modern film industry, when you try to lengthen a narrative arc and decide to continually exploit.
A title that has been lucky with sequels, spin-offs and prequels, almost always there is a progressive deterioration, a repetition somewhat nefarious.
Despicable Me , released 12 years ago, has taken the role of the villain in the world of animation to a level of complexity and fun. In addition to launching the famous Minions , now we also get the sequel to the spin-off released seven years ago: Minions 2: Come Gru Becomes Despicable . And whether you have any offspring or not, it’s a movie that will give you a lot of fun.
Gru when she was a naughty teenager
Fully embracing a pulp atmosphere from the very first minutes, massively and continuously paying homage to the 70s in all their glory, with the funky, old TV series and comics that made that decade incredibly flourishing and picturesque, Minions 2starts from Gru’s adolescence. We see him struggling with his dreams, which are naturally very different from those of his other peers and classmates. Instead of wanting to be a doctor, astronaut, football champion or whatever, Gru yearns to join the infamous “Malefic 6”. This is none other than the most famous group of supervillains in the world, composed of the surly and experienced Wild Knuckles, the official founder of the group, the astute Belle, the “chelate” Jean Clawed, the unstable Nun-Chunk, the picturesque Svengeance and the mighty Stronghold. They have managed to take possession of a mysterious and powerful stone, capable of exercising an incredible and arcane power.
Knucles is treacherously ousted, and as a result now a place in the group has been freed up, for which Gru would be willing to do everything, even to demonstrate his daring and his skills by stealing the magical jewel from the Evil 6 … or rather 5 It will be just the beginning of an adrenaline-fueled and hilarious adventure, including superpowers, gadgets, martial arts and fighting, in which the legendary Minions will play a role that is anything but secondary. Bob, Stuart, Kevin and Otto between messes, chaos and resourcefulness, in fact, will create the basis for the future of Gru’s “Despicable”.
Between laughter and tributes to pop culture
Minions 2 is therefore a film with multiple identities inside, with an incredible number of easter eggs and references to the pop culture that it was, but also capable of showing us the famous super-Villain in a different light. In an era in which superheroes have now literally besieged us, it is not a trivial matter to be able to find a product that embraces this narrative universe, however breaking away from clichés, but above all creating a parody as well-guessed as in reality a harbinger of a completely different world. how trivial.
Minions 2 from the beginning winks at the adventure, genre cinema, action and martial arts films that made Bruce Lee and Sonny Chiba two real myths, but of course it is difficult not to grasp even a tribute to the TV series of the 60s and 70s. More than someone will notice clear homages to Thunderbirds , not to mention Japanese anime and all that videogame world that today dominates the new generations, but which has drawn inspiration from the best of creative kitsch of past decades.
Minions 2 to all this combines the theme of the coming-of-age film, with Gru who has to deal not only and not so much with nemeses, but above all with the excess of security that animates him, the selfishness in the name of which he always lets himself be guided. however, the inability to understand that alone he certainly cannot accomplish anything in life. Even the theme of paternity is anything but secondary, especially thanks to the character of Wild Knuckles, a sort of cross between a Long John Silver and a Popeye , to which, however, the screenplay by Brian Lynch and Matthew Foge manages to give something unique, creating a kind of mix between an appendage adventurer and a spaghetti western anti-hero.
The whole works because it is hilarious, dynamic, also winking as a diegetic nature to The Simpsons and Family Guy , without ever entering with the most extreme or irreverent shades.
A different film from the norm
But it is when they, the Minions, come on the scene that you really laugh a lot, also by virtue of how the direction of Kyle Balda, Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val , enjoys making them the protagonists of Indovinatissimi sketches. Inside, it’s not hard to spot a hug to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Easy Rider , Godzilla and company movies, the best of Blaxploitation, Karate Kid and the legendary filmography of icons like Jackie Chan, Van Damme and Bruce Lee.
But Tarantino, Hazzard, the A-Team also pop up , in short, we are presented with a sort of gigantic cauldron, with an irresistible rhythm, which at times also takes over the plot, in some moments perhaps excessively hasty.
However, the final judgment can only be positive, by virtue of a great imagination at the base of the operation, of the ability above all to have created intriguing, very successful characters from scratch, in which the mockery of modern cinema and the world is often agitated. of adults.
It is not clear whether there will be a sequel or not, what is certain is that Minions 2 undoubtedly belongs to an endangered species: that of cinema designed for the pre-adolescent target.
To date, objectively this universe is often sidelined by the film industry and if we do the math, in fact, we discover that even the world of animation today seems to want to concentrate and above all on adolescents, as if in general the target ranged from 12 to at the limit of 25. Minions 2 instead, brings with it something that we haven’t seen for a long time: a transversal narrative able to satisfy every age group even if theoretically studied only for one. It is no small thing if we think about it well, nor is it to see that this saga does not lose hits after years.