9/3/2023 0 Comments Minions paradise find rope![]() The Beastie Boys may not fit, but they’re made to. The villains’ lair is beneath a record store cleverly labeled “Criminal Records,” and the password is a Linda Ronstadt hit of the era, “You’re No Good.” But Sunshine Band disco, funk, soul, Carpenters pop, “Fly Like an Eagle” and Rhymin’ Simon all fold into the soundtrack and find a comic foothold here. But it also leads to joke after joke made out of the music. The setting is the campiest decade of them all, and that explains all the “Kung Fu Fighting,” Blaxploitation references and the like. The animators even steal gimmicks and action poses/freeze-frames from anime action pictures to make the action even more jaw-dropping and hilarious. Bodies and faces distorted by collisions and kicks, eyes bugging out in terror, all vintage Looney touches. This may be the most wound-up, slo-mo, cartoonish slapstick animated film since the golden Looney Tunes age of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones. “Rise of Gru” is kind of frantic and over-the-top violent. Most of those big name voice actors aren’t recognizable and have too few lines to register, even if they were. Her scenes, beating up “bullies” and training the little yellow “tater tots,” steal the picture.Īs I mentioned, Gru is kind of sidelined in this outing, which turns out to be a blessing. ![]() Their efforts will take in a chase-and-then-road trip with a hip biker ( RZA), a stolen jetliner to get to San Francisco and martial arts training by acupuncturist and Kung Fu Master Chow ( Michelle Yeoh), who is NOT to be taken lightly, in spite of her short, plump appearance. The next thing Gru knows, he’s been snatched pretty much right out of his mother’s ( Julie Andrews) Tupperware party, with the still-living Wild Knuckles wanting the Zodiac Stone, Belle Bottom and the other Vicious Five also on his trail and the Minions haplessly trying to track kidnapped “Mini-Boss” and hunt down the misplaced stone. Gru is dismissed as a “punk kid” at his job interview, but decides to take Belle Bottom’s sneering “Come back when you’ve done something to IMPRESS me” to heart and swipes the stone.Ī Minion loses that stone as they’re making their wild and crazy getaway. They might not be impressed with his spray-can cheese gun, used on anybody who stands in their way at the ice cream shop. They don’t know Gru’s evil plots mostly consist of self-designed stink bombs he tosses into “Jaws” screenings to clear the theater for him and his Minion pals. They’ll hold auditions for somebody new to make them “Six” again. Van Damme) and Svengeance ( Dolph Lundgren) work with the wily old Wild Knuckles (Oscar winner Alan Arkin) to steal The Zodiac Stone, a pendant with magical powers.Īfter their Indiana Jones-style heist, the other five betray Wild Knuckles and leave him for dead. Henson), wimpled menace Nun-chucks ( Lucy Lawless), Strong Hold ( Danny Trejo), lobster-legged Jean Clawed ( J.C. It’s 1976, and Blaxploitation baddie Belle Bottom ( Taraji P. Gru, closing in on 11, longs to join the Vicious Six, the best gang of supervillains on the West Coast. Nothing against Steve Carell, but who knew Gru, as an adult or in his learning-the-super-villain ropes years in this prequel, works even better as a supporting player? That’s the breakthrough these Minions movies have managed. Feel free to sing along with Paul Simon’s “Cecilia” or the Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” if you do. Heck, the string of ’70s pop, rock and soul music cues, puns and “Minions Sing the ’70s” giggles utterly outclass both “Sing” movies while rarely delivering a lyric human ears can decipher. It’s a slapsticky/witty, action-and-sight-gag-packed romp of a popcorn movie, a film that delivers more animated laughs than every other kids’ cartoon this year, put together. I know it’s “only a sequel,” and “only” a children’s animated film at that.īut “Minions: The Rise of Gru” is a movie of manic, demented genius.
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