Minions: The Rise of Gru — A total delight

Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) • View trailer

4.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for cartoon violence and mild rude humor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.1.22

This is the most entertaining, fun-filled 87 minutes we’re likely to experience this summer.

 

Although so many other franchises show their age over time, we always can depend upon the irrepressibly impish Minions. They’re a force of comedic nature, wrapped up in a banana-yellow, pill-shaped package.

 

Gru's determination to shorten the line at the local ice cream parlor is anticipated with
glee by, from left, Stuart, Bob and Kevin.

Directors Kyle Balda, Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val — assisted by a hilarity-laced script from Matthew Fogel and Brian Lynch — have crafted a clever origin story that takes us back to the 1970s, prior to the events that introduced the adult Gru and his language-torturing little buddies, back in 2010’s Despicable Me.

But that comes a bit later, in this pell-mell, fast-paced fantasy romp (kudos, as well, to editor Claire Dodgson).

 

A lengthy prologue introduces bad-ass martial arts fighter Wild Knuckles (voiced by Alan Arkin), leader of an infamous supervillain group, the Vicious 6. Their current goal: to snatch an ancient, glowing green medallion that’ll grant its bearers the awesome mystical powers of Chinese zodiac creatures.

 

With lithe moves and acrobatic prowess that Indiana Jones could only dream about, Wild Knuckles obtains the prize. He’s then cut loose — literally, from a high altitude — when the other gang members unite behind the far cooler (and younger) Belle Bottom (Taraji P. Henson), whose chain belt doubles as a lethal disco-ball mace.

 

Time to make way for the new generation, she waspishly chortles.

 

Cut to a suburban grade school, where 12-year-old Gru (Steve Carell) dreams of becoming a super-villain. His mischievous pranks already border on extreme bad behavior, aided and abetted by favorite Minion companions Kevin (the tall planner), Stuart (the naughty cut-up) and Bob (the youngster, rarely without a tiny teddy bear).

 

All are voiced, with distinctly different language-mangling, by Pierre Coffin.

 

(It should be mentioned that this is the scheming, proto-malevolent Gru, as depicted in the first Despicable Me, rather than the reluctantly heroic do-gooder into which he morphed, as the series progressed.)

 

Gru already is on his way to cackling master-villainy, thanks to a way-cool basement lair constructed by the entire Minion gang, much to the dismay of his New Age-y mother (Julie Andrews). And if his weapon of choice dispenses Cheez Whiz rather than a death ray, well, a kid’s gotta start somewhere … right?

 

Given that their group name demands a replacement for the recently departed Wild Knuckles, Belle and the other hold open auditions; learning of this, Gru couldn’t be more delighted. Alas, the baddies are unimpressed upon discovering that this particular wannabe is just a child.

 

“Come back when you do something that impresses us,” Belle snarls, derisively.

Aquaman: Waterlogged

Aquaman (2018) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, and somewhat generously, for considerable sci-fi action and violence, and occasional profanity.
By Derrick Bang

This film has serious issues with tone and balance.

Far too much of director James Wan’s narrative — he shares writing chores with Will Beall, Geoff Johns and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick — sags beneath the weight of overly florid, Shakespearean-style dialog that most cast members lack the gravitas to pull off.

Having burrowed deep beneath the Sahara Desert, to discover the remnants of a long-
lost undersea kingdom, Arthur (Jason Momoa) and Mera (Amber Heard) activate a device
that will provide the next clue to the whereabouts of the fabled Lost Trident of Atlan.

And which is compromised further by the mildly earthy comments tossed off by star Jason Momoa. Mind you, he’s good with a quip, and Wan apparently felt that such contrasting elocution styles would be amusing. Instead, it’s merely awkward.

Then there’s the matter of villains. A superhero is only as good — as interesting — as his adversaries, and Momoa’s Aquaman has two. By far the more stylish, and far more dangerous, is a high-tech pirate known as Manta, played with savage malevolence by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. He’s a baddie to be reckoned with: a rage machine who radiates danger and has serious issues with our hero.

But Manta is relegated to B-villain status: an afterthought who isn’t much of a problem, and ultimately becomes a joke.

Which is ironic, because the true joke is Patrick Wilson’s laughably awful handling of the alpha villain: Aquaman’s half-brother Orm, would-be despotic ruler of all the undersea kingdoms. Wilson is atrociously out of his depth — pun intended — and radiates about as much menace as damp Kleenex. He looks and sounds like a whiny little boy who’s about to have his toys taken away.

This film collapses every time Wilson speaks a line, or faces off against the far more formidable Momoa.

I’m guessing Wan brought Wilson along for the ride, because the two of them have worked together on a bunch of nasty little horror flicks (the Insidious and Conjuring series, The Nun). Which points further to Wan’s poor judgment.

Aquaman also suffers from excess been there/done that: the inevitable result of too many superhero films piling atop each other. The regal look and sound of Atlantis, with its massive statuary and guarded “approach bridge” — and its position as one of seven mythic undersea kingdoms — are blatant echoes of Thor’s Asgard and its neighboring eight realms.

Aquaman’s mano a mano duels with Orm, over control of the Atlantean throne, are straight out of the Black Panther playbook … where, rest assured, the clashes were handled far better, and carried much greater emotional weight.

The Expendables 3: Way past their prime

The Expendables 3 (2014) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, despite relentless violence, brutality and profanity
By Derrick Bang

What an overcooked, overlong, overloud waste of time.

Any semblance of the modestly clever, “aging Dirty Dozen” scenario — which the first film in this series possessed, to a minor degree, back in 2010 — has been buried in an endless, mindless fusillade of bullets, bombs and badly delivered, grade-Z dialogue.

Little realizing that their mission is about to go pear-shaped, Barney (Sylvester Stallone,
right) leads comrades Toll Road (Randy Couture) and Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) to
their unscheduled appointment with a notorious arms dealer.

I note star Sylvester Stallone’s credit for this film’s story, with further input from scripters Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt. The notion that three whole people were required to write this laughable mess, frankly, defies belief.

Okay, granted, we’re not talkin’ Shakespeare here. This series’ sole raison d’être is to gather a bunch of aging A-, B- and C-level action stars, feed them tough-guy one-liners, and set them loose against some power-mad villain with delusions of world domination. Cue the aforementioned bullets, bombs and badly delivered dialogue.

But the cartoonish qualities, admittedly present back in 2010, have devoured this tedious excuse for a threequel. The first film’s modest efforts at actual characterization — such as Charisma Carpenter’s presence as Lacy, tempestuous wife of Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) — have been jettisoned. Carpenter is a no-show here, as is any layering that might make us care a whit about these anti-heroes.

They’re simply well-muscled point-and-shoot stick figures who have no more actual screen presence in this chaos, than the army of uncredited stunt doubles who actually perform all of these crazed action scenes.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Mel Gibson makes a memorably crazed über-villain as psychotic arms dealer Conrad Stonebanks; Gibson knows how to chew his way through all this nonsense. In great contrast to Stallone’s morose, stone-faced non-performance as primary hero Barney Ross, Gibson enthusiastically embraces every aspect of Stonebanks’ bad-bad self. More power to him.

Newcomer Antonio Banderas also is a hoot as Galgo, an insecure chatterbox who threatens to bore everybody to death with his ceaseless prattle. Banderas’ performance — and patter — are an amped-up echo of his comic voice work as Puss in Boots, in the animated Shrek series; the irony is that this approach succeeds better than most everything else in this pinball machine of a movie.