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Minions | 2015 | PG | - 2.4.2

In this prequel, the Minions form on prehistoric Earth as yellow single-celled organisms. They evolve into bipedal pills and seek the most sinister villains to serve. They always fail their masters and, nearly giving up, they send Minions Kevin, Stuart and Bob (all voiced by Pierre Coffin) out into the world, where they find a new despicable boss-lady (voiced by Sandra Bullock) in Florida. Also with Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan, Geoffrey Rush and Jennifer Saunders. Directed by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda. The film includes dialogue in gibberish and Pidgin English with some French, Spanish, and Italian words with no subtitles or translation. [1:31]

SEX/NUDITY 2 - A husband and his wife hug a few times and he dips her; a Minion imitates them by turning his back and hugging himself to represent a pair of lovers. A Minion kisses a woman's hand. A Minion kisses two fire hydrants as he sits in a hot tub with them and their metal nuts for use with a wrench for water flow may suggest breasts.
 Three Minions stand on one another's shoulders three-high and pose as a busty (stuffed) woman wearing a sweater; the top Minion rubs and opens the bulging chest area to reveal another set of eyes and a man standing next to the figure exclaims, "Ooh la!" A Minion speaks gibberish love language to a yellow fire hydrant that he mistakes as female; he calls it "pappita" and "papaya" and speaks through narrowed eyes as he hugs it. A Minion pants while looking at an attractive woman on a stage and his tongue hangs out. Three Minions watch "The Dating Game" on TV and root for the contestants.
 Three fat male palace guards are hypnotized and strip to their long boxer shorts, dancing and singing as their fat jiggles and we see them front and back.
 Round, yellow single-cell creatures have tails that make them look like sperm. A few scenes feature nude Minions with no genitals, but they wear loincloths made of leaves; one Minion has no leaves and shouts in embarrassment, and gets two red starfishes from the sea and places them over his chest like a bra (we see his buttocks cheeks as he walks away). A Minion wearing thong panties and a T-shirt walks away from the camera and we see his yellow buttocks cheeks. An Egyptian wall painting depicts a hundred soldiers wearing knee-length wrap skirts, but shirtless (no chest hair or nipples). Minions are shown wearing skirts and shirtless with no body details. A Minion floats to the ground with coveralls as a parachute and he wears Y-front briefs. Two nude male statues are shown with leaf-like stone coverings for genitals: Michelangelo and The Discus Thrower. A woman wears a strapless knee-length gown that reveals a tiny waist and bare shoulders, upper back, arms and slight cleavage; she also wears black hosiery and high heels and in two scenes she pulls up her bodice slightly (no additional cleavage shows). A man dresses like a woman that he admires (a strapless, knee-length gown) and we see his bare shoulders/arms along with some chest hair. A Minion wears a pair of pink trousers and unzips the fly, revealing his open mouth and big white teeth. A male hairdresser wears a midriff-baring shirt that reveals chest hair in the open neckline, and a fat belly below the end of the shirt. A cave man reveals one bare shoulder and a partially bare chest. Two strong men wear tight leather trousers on their thin legs and are shirtless with extremely wide torsos. A Sumo wrestler wears only a diaper like garment and reveals bare shoulders, arms, chest, jiggling gut with navel, and legs; a Minion gets trapped in his bare jiggling belly (we see his buttocks cheeks three times). A Conan-like warrior wears only a loincloth and reveals a torso, arms, shoulders and legs.

VIOLENCE/GORE 4 - Minions attempt to serve despicable masters, including a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Dracula, a Pharaoh, a Caveman and Napoleon Bonaparte and accident prone as they are they bring about the demise of all their masters; Dracula burns up in the sunlight, freezes in place, and becomes dust on the wind; a T-rex stomps on a lizard, which disappears and then, the T-Rex is accidentally herded onto a large boulder, which rolls down a cliff with a few Minions rolling after it and we see a large lake of boiling lava below the cliff as a Minion accidentally rolls into the boulder, and the dinosaur falls over the cliff (we see and hear a loud splash of lava and the scene ends); a cave man accepts a fly swatter from Minions and slaps a bear on the nose, but it roars and chases him off-screen (suggesting the bear ate the man); the Minions drop a pyramid onto a Pharaoh and we never see him again; Minions accidentally knock a Yeti down, killing him (no blood) and other Yeti chase them out of the Arctic; Minions fire a cannon that slips and throws Napoleon off-screen atop a cannonball; we see hundreds of Minions run away screaming.
 A time traveling scientist brings his future self back with him on each journey and we see a room full of his "selves"; one persona slams a large metal device into another self and kills him accidentally (no blood). A woman punches, kicks and throws a few dozen men to the ground and off-screen; she climbs up a pile of unconscious men and stands at the top, smiling. A Minion and a Queen fight in a carriage; she punches and kicks the Minion a dozen times, felling him but doing no damage that we see as the driver falls to the pavement behind the carriage and stampeding horses (he is not injured), a woman nearby falls over a bench, unharmed and the carriage smashes into a tree, but no one is hurt. A big shirtless henchman threatens a woman, who sticks her first two fingers up his nostrils and subdues him, slamming him to the floor in a shoulder throw. In a scuffle among dozens of male villains, they end up in a heap and a man scratches the behind of another person in the pile. Police officers chase a Minion that has telescoping arms and legs, grabbing its legs and finally subduing it as a pack of villains also chase, brandishing weapons like lances, swords, clubs, guns and knives; the spiked ball of a mace rolls toward a Minion and misses it and a laughing clown on a unicycle throws bombs at the minions (they explode off-target). Minions run from a bee across a cable and into a building, then onto a chandelier where they run around it and unscrew it dropping it on the head of a villain (she is not hurt); she orders a crowd of people to execute the Minions and screams, "He tried to kill me!" A human henchman tries to hang Minions but the gallows and rope will not work, so the Minions use the noose to practice acrobatics and the rack stretches them without permanent damage or pain; they and the human dungeon master pose for selfies using the torture devices as props and laugh. A woman super villain adopts three Minions and transports them to London on an assignment to steal the Queen's jeweled crown where three palace guards point long lances at the Minions and toward the audience, but a Minion hypnotizes them to sing and dance; the Tower Guard appears blind and carries a cane, swinging it at three Minions but missing before striking one of them several times and swinging the cane up into the crotch of one Minion, who says, "Oow," but the Minion has no genitals to harm and laughs. Prehistoric fish with large teeth swallow some single-celled Minions as other Minions shake and look scared. A lizard in a Hawaiian shirt breathes fire on a convention clerk, who suffers no burns. A polo ball strikes a woman's eye and reddens it.
 A woman fires missiles from cannons mounted on her dress at a Minion (she misses). A woman fires a lava-cannon at Minions and misses. A Minion fires a lava gun and misses his target, but spews lava all over floors in a couple of scenes. A woman points a three-barreled machine gun at a Minion as a short dog jumps and licks her whole face (we see no saliva); the woman shouts and locks the Minions into a torture chamber.
 Many Minions swarm over a dock and gather on a street, distracting a villain as she fires a lava rifle and a missile at a giant Minion, which he swallows as the crowd gasps and he knocks the woman out of the way; the woman escapes with a man by using her dress that contains a rocket skirt and the giant Minion hangs onto it as the two people fly upward before the missile explodes into a huge cloud of smoke; another Minion cries, but the Giant Minion is OK in the end. At an awards ceremony, a woman steals a queen's crown and runs away with a man, but another man freezes them solid with a special weapon, steals the crown and runs off-screen; a Minion army chases him after they watch him fly away in a black-smoke spewing rocket ship with an alien dog-like creature.
 Three Minions hitch a ride with a family of criminals in a car (mother, father, a young boy and girl and a baby); the mother has a large knife with which she slices apples and the children eat them loudly, like animals; the humans stop at a building where they don knit hat-masks, rush out to rob a bank and are chased by police down a highway as their car skids and the man driving shoots a paint ball rifle that splatters the windshield of three chasing cruisers; a Minion fires a bazooka, knocking down telephone poles and a water tower that the cruisers crash resulting in bent fenders; the baby in the getaway car pulls the ring on a grenade and the scene ends.
 The Creature from the Black Lagoon sputters in a few scenes and grabs a Minion through a manhole, but the Minion escapes. Four pairs of feet clad in shoes step on a manhole cover, pushing Minions below the surface of the pavement. A tanker truck runs over a Minion without injuring it. A sword sticks into a stage, bends and slaps a Minion in the face, not injuring it. A woman throws a Minion out of a cab, unharmed. Minions often argue among themselves and slap each other in the head like the Three Stooges. Two Minions fall down several times and run into mirrors or walls, unharmed. A Minion swats a bee, hits a friend in the face and the friend cries.
 Minions trudge through a snowstorm and one Minion digs another Minion out of some ice. Minions ride on an ice floe, stuck between a polar bear on one ice mass and a brown bear on another; both bears roar and the scene ends. Minions float across the sea on an ice floe and end up in Australia, where they ride in kangaroo pouches in a bumpy ride. Minions hide in an Arctic cave when the French Army chases them with bayoneted rifles after their emperor's demise. A villain and criminals' TV network shows a sidekick that taps a baseball bat into his hand continually.
 A Minion plays heavy metal guitar, screams and smashes the guitar on a stage as many men and women scream in appreciation. A Minion pulls a sword embedded in a stone free of the rock and becomes a king; he later shouts to a crowd of subjects who cheer loudly several times.
 In a bedtime story, a woman's head changes into that of a big-toothed wolf and she roars at three Minions, frightening them with threats of death if they fail her assignments; an anvil falls on them in the story, followed by a UFO with a green alien and then a large bomb that does not explode. We see tubes of neon green nuclear fluids in the folds of a woman's skirt.
 We hear that a villain ate his henchman. Three Minions travel to Villain-Con and audition as henchmen for a series of villains who reject them.
 Three Minions escape a torture chamber through a sewer and steal a funeral wreath; from a point below, we see a coffin from which black shoe toes stick out and a woman cries as two men look into the coffin. A large number of corgis serve as horses for Minions and humans for indoor polo; one dog appears asleep or unconscious and a man drags it under him. In a car, a little girl shakes a cat very hard.
 A Minion activates a machine in a laboratory and becomes a giant as a result; he demolishes a palace by growing inside it and smashing through bricks and walking through town, he scares men and women who shout and some cars shake.
 A T-rex roars into the screen and spews saliva toward the audience, once in the film and once in the end credits as a man's ray gun jams. A boy slobbers over a Minion, who blows away the saliva before it makes contact. A mother licks her thumb and cleans a baby's face. A hairdresser licks a finger and smoothes his mustache. A Minion licks his thumb and cleans a friend's face three times. A Minion accidentally swallows a small Minion and spits him out, covered with saliva. During end credits, a Minion licks the entire screen and another Minion slaps a poster onto it, facing the audience. In a dugout boat, a Minion hallucinates that his two crewmates are bananas and tries to eat one of them by licking his face while the third Minion sucks on the second Minion's head. A dog jumps and licks a woman's whole face (we see no saliva)
 A Minion flatulates as he lifts a heavy chunk of ice. In two scenes, a hungry Minion's stomach growls loudly. A giant Minion appears to urinate on something from the audience's view of his back and when he steps back we see a fountain spewing a strong stream of water. Two Minions shake with fear as a third Minion sleeps and snores.

LANGUAGE 2 - 2 mild obscenities (screwed, I'll be damned), name-calling (freaks, weirdos, blighter, hooligans, penguin, backstabbing, traitors, little, tiny, idiot, imbecile, pinheads, jaundiced, square, worthless, deviled eggs), stereotypical references to henchmen, villains, blind followers, cave men, kings, queens, evil clowns, men, women, gays, hairdressers, fat people, the French, Hispanics, Italians, the English, British police officers, exclamations (so help me, shut-up, blimey).

SUBSTANCE USE - A Minion drinks two drinks from Martini glasses on an airplane, Queen Elizabeth II works in a pub as a comedian and chugs a large mug of beer after telling a joke, men sit at tables in a pub and hold mugs of beer and a few men drink from their mugs, and during the end credits the Queen dances with two men as they hold mugs of beer.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Having a purpose in life, women's rights, kindness, friendship, loyalty, courage, sacrifice, determination, crime, villains, law enforcement, justice.

MESSAGE - Everyone needs friends and a purpose in life.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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