Minions & Monsters: Almost overwhelming

Minions & Monsters (2026) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five); rated PG, for animated violent action and rude/macabre humor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.5.26

Minions features always have felt less like a coherent film, and more like a randomly assorted collection of sight gags, but this one is particularly scattershot.

 

(It’s no accident that the Minions work best in cartoon shorts.)

 

Although the slyly duplicitous Goomi (the little green guy) has promised Minions James,
Henry and Ed that they'll find their desired monsters in a long-abandoned island cave,
getting there proves ... a bit hazardous.

On top of which, contrary to expectations raised by its title, the crucial monsters don’t appear until way past the halfway point.

Prior to that, writers Pierre Coffin and Brian Lynch have fun dumping the little yellow troublemakers into silent-era Hollywood, where they skewer — or reference — every iconic moment made famous by the likes of George Méliès, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and countless others.

 

(I do wonder, though ... will such material resonate with today’s moviegoers?)

 

The stage is set when the current Universal Pictures logo halts during mid-presentation, scrolls backwards, and then zips through its previous versions until arriving at the late 19th century dawn of cinema, with crudely animated, monochromatic Minions dancing on the screen.

 

The story proper begins as perky tour guide Olivia (voiced by Allison Janney) leads a group through a vast display of movie memorabilia. Sight gags abound even here, as a glass booth honoring George Lucas unexpectedly contains Lucas himself, trapped without his phone (and gamely voiced by Lucas).

 

Olivia builds to her big reveal of the two most famous figures in the entire museum: Minions James and Henry ... wholly unrecognized by anybody in the group. Appalled by this display of ignorance, Olivia begins an incredible saga that reveals how the official history of cinema is much weirder than what anybody has been taught.

 

The story begins in territory lifted from 2015’s Minions, as tribes of Minions voyage the Earth in prehistoric times, seeking to serve the world’s most despicable masters. One group, led by the disciplined and impatient Dick, has brief encounters with a massive, home-stomping cyclops and a Renaissance-era wizard.

 

Alas, in each case the impish, unfocused and invariably destructive Minions accidentally kill their temporary masters.

 

The imaginative James can’t keep his head in the game; much to Dick’s annoyance, he’s too busy drawing fantastical pictures of encounters with lurid monsters. (James doesn’t know it yet, but he’s in the process of inventing storyboards.) James therefore is shunned by the other Minions, with the exception of the loyal Henry, and the warm-hearted, hearing-impaired Ed, both of whom become best friends. (One struggles to imagine the finer points of Minion sign language.)

Hoppers: Absolutely fabulous

Hoppers (2026) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five); rated PG, for dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.8.26

I didn’t think Pixar ever would top 2015’s marvelous Inside Out, with its clever blend of humor, pathos and gentle social commentary, wrapped into a wildly imaginative premise.

 

Having unknowingly violated the all-encompassing "pond rules" that govern this diverse
collection of animals, Mabel — her mind currently occupying the body of the cute
robotic beaver about to become a bear's lunch — is brought before the community's king.

But director Daniel Chong and co-writer Jesse Andrews have done the seemingly impossible: Pixar’s newest entry is even better. Proof positive, once again, that some of today’s best original scripts are attached to animated films.

You’ll laugh, cry, nod and marvel at this film’s similarly ingenious story, which also contains a slyly subversive message.

 

A brief prologue introduces animal-loving Mabel (voiced by Piper Curda) as an adolescent, during a failed attempt to free her school’s numerous classroom pets from their dismal lives of relentless poking and prodding. Banished for the rest of the day, then dumped into the sympathetic embrace of her beloved Grandma Tanaka (Karen Huie), the angry, humiliated little girl can’t understand why people don’t realize she was doing a good thing.

 

 Grandma Tanaka walks her to a large rock in a tranquil glade, which overlooks a pond.

 

“Be still,” her grandmother instructs. “Listen ... and watch.”

 

The silence soon is broken by bird songs and the hum of insects. The foliage rustles, as deer walk past; beavers happily work on the large dam that has created this pond.

 

The moment is magical, transformational. Many more such visits follow.

 

The story then flashes forward. Mabel, now 19, is an equally impassioned college student who constantly locks horns with Beaverton’s grandstanding, development-obsessed “Mayor Jerry” (Jon Hamm). He’s promoting his re-election bid with the promise of a new stretch of overhead highway that’ll improve commute time “by minutes.”

 

The final portion also will destroy Mabel’s beloved glade, along with its many wonderful memories. Mayor Jerry can get away with this, because the pond, dam and its wildlife — particularly the beavers — are long gone.

 

Mayor Jerry taunts Mabel, giving her 48 hours to somehow lure the beavers back, knowing full well that’s impossible.

 

Savvy viewers will wonder why all the animals left.

The Secret Life of Pets: Too much bite, not enough bark

The Secret Life of Pets (2016) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, for no particularly reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.8.16

There’s such a thing as trying too hard.

This film’s concept, as suggested by the hilarious preview we’ve been watching for the past several months, is irresistible. Everybody who owns a dog, cat, hamster — or whatever — wonders what our beloved critters get up to, while we’re away from home. Do they chew our shoes? Invade the pantry? Climb the drapes? Kick back and watch Animal Planet on the flat-screen TV?

Gidget, far right, expects great things from the "local expert" who knows the ins and outs of
Manhattan, and will help them find the missing Max and Duke. On the other hand, Gidget's
companions — from left, Chloe, Sweetpea, Norman, Mel, Tiberius and Buddy — have
their doubts.

If scripters Ken Daurio, Brian Lynch and Cinco Paul had delivered on that theme, The Secret Life of Pets would have been more emotionally satisfying. Alas, the aforementioned trailer — and film title — are a bit misleading. This story isn’t all that concerned with the secret lives of pets; it’s actually a scuffle between Max (voiced by Louis C.K.), a quick-witted terrier who has long been the sole companion of his owner, Katie (Ellie Kemper); and newcomer Duke (Eric Stonestreet), a massive, fluffy, unruly mongrel she rescues one day from the local animal shelter.

Long accustomed to being the alpha dog, both at home and in his multi-story Manhattan apartment building, Max doesn’t take kindly to this intruder ... particularly when Duke shows little interest in sharing their territory. This struggle for dominance spills out onto New York’s mean streets, and soon involves a deranged bunny named Snowball (Kevin Hart), who heads a massive, motley pack of abandoned animals calling themselves the Flushed Pets.

Snowball and his gang hate people, and they also hate pampered pets; the increasingly chaotic result turns into a slapstick collection of sight gags, some of which jump the shark (well, crocodile) to a disastrous degree. An interlude in a sausage factory defies description, particularly when it morphs into a musical sequence set to “We Go Together,” from Grease.

Along the way, the film loses what little heart it struggles to display, while also burying the all-important message: that people shouldn’t adopt pets, if they’ve no intention of keeping them. Instead, it’s a race to a manic finish line, with co-directors Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney apparently engaged in several rounds of Can You Top This?

Which is a shame. The lengthy prologue introduces us to a delightful set of pampered pets, each of whom could have been explored further. Too often, though, they become sidebar distractions to the outrageous antics of Snowball & Co.

Delivery Man: Return to sender

Delivery Man (2013) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rating: PG-13, for thematic elements, sexual content, drug use, profanity and brief violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.22.13

In a case that was argued before a Kansas judge just a few weeks ago — having wound its way through the court system for roughly a year — sperm donor William Marotta is fighting an order by the state that he pay child support for a little girl he “fathered” four years ago.

As the newly pregnant Emma (Cobie Smulders) watches the uncontrolled little children
at a neighborhood park, lamenting that she hasn't the faintest notion of how to become
a mother, David (Vince Vaughn) insists that she'll be the perfect parent. He should
know, given the rather massive secret that he can't bring himself to share with her...

Marotta responded to a Craigslist ad placed by two women back in 2009; the three drew up a contract that absolved him of any responsibility to or for the child. The same-sex couple subsequently split up, which forced the custodial parent — Jennifer Schreiner — to obtain $6,000 in public assistance, to help pay her family expenses.

Kansas state law requires that a licensed doctor perform artificial insemination. Seizing a legal loophole because — wait for it — Schreiner and then-partner Angela Bauer used a catheter and syringe, with no doctor present, the state filed suit and thus far has spent well in excess of $6,000 to recover this sum from Marotta. Hovering in the wings, as Marotta’s attorney suggests, is the certainty that conservative Kansas lawmakers — the state approved a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in 2005 — are using this case to reaffirm their position on “family values.”

Although a decision is expected by the end of the year, that won’t be the end of it; both sides are expected to appeal an unfavorable verdict.

I’ve absolutely no doubt that an incisive, scathingly satirical film could be made from this bizarre scenario, and it would have been far funnier, and much more satisfying, than Ken Scott’s Delivery Man.

This Vince Vaughn vehicle has been re-shaped somewhat from the 2011 Canadian dramedy Starbuck, which Scott also directed and co-wrote with Martin Petit. That film was enormously popular in its native country, winning a series of Canadian cinema awards and making a splash at regional film festivals.

(In a fascinating case of life imitating art, a month or so into Starbuck’s production, the news broke of Michigan’s Dr. Kirk Maxey, who had fathered roughly 400 children after donating semen twice a week between 1980 and ’94. He subsequently lobbied for stricter sperm bank regulation. You think?)

I’ve not seen Starbuck, and therefore cannot comment on its merits. But I suspect it’s far more entertaining than Delivery Man, which can’t decide what it wants to be, when it grows up.