Minions: The Rise of Gru

The Banana Peel of History

I’ve seen Minions: The Rise of Gru three times now—once with my nephew, once with a group of teenagers in suits, and once alone, at 11 PM, after a long day of pretending to be an adult. Each viewing revealed something different: the first, a harmless kids’ movie; the second, a meme factory; the third, a strange artifact of corporate nostalgia, as hollow as a piñata and just as brightly colored. What lingers isn’t the plot (which is forgettable) or the jokes (which are hit-or-miss) but the way the film accidentally becomes a time capsule of its own cultural moment—one where chaos is currency, irony is the default mode, and even a movie about tiny yellow henchmen can’t escape the weight of the real world pressing against its seams.

The film’s greatest trick is its setting: the 1970s, rendered in the kind of hyper-saturated, day-glo palette that makes you feel like you’ve mainlined a box of Froot Loops. It’s not a deep dive into the era—there’s no Chinatown or Taxi Driver here—but a surface-level love letter to its aesthetic, all bell-bottoms, shag carpets, and kung fu movies. The soundtrack is a greatest-hits reel of the decade, from Funkytown to You’re the One That I Want, and it’s deployed with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

The music doesn’t just accompany the action; it is the action, each track drop timed to a gag or a pratfall. It’s effective, in the way a sugar rush is effective—brief, intense, and followed by a crash.

But the 1970s here aren’t just a backdrop; they’re a vibe, and the film leans into that vibe with the desperation of a brand trying to sell nostalgia to people who weren’t even alive for it. That’s the thing about The Rise of Gru: it’s not really for kids, or at least not just for kids. It’s for the teenagers who grew up with the first Despicable Me and now treat the Minions like a lifestyle, showing up to screenings in suits and ties like they’re at a corporate retreat.

It’s for the adults who remember the original films fondly and are willing to overlook the thin plotting for the sake of a few good gags. And it’s for Universal, which has turned the Minions into a billion-dollar franchise, one that can weather scandals, censorship, and even the occasional riot in a Guernsey cinema.

The plot, such as it is, follows 12-year-old Gru (Steve Carell, doing his best young-villain voice) as he tries to impress the Vicious 6, a supervillain group led by a blaxploitation-inspired Belle Bottom (Taraji P. Henson, who seems to be having the time of her life). Gru’s plan involves stealing a magical stone, enlisting the help of his Minions, and getting tangled up in a series of increasingly absurd set pieces.