Episode 142 - Minons & Monsters - Claws its Way to High Reviews!

Welcome back to DRM!

We will be mixing it up with traditional, shorter audio only reviews, 4K video reviews for larger films and of course the 4K Hollywood Interviews. 

Minions & Monsters is a 2026 animated comedy set in 1927 Old Hollywood, where a new trio of Minions—James, Henry, and Ed—accidentally become silent‑era stars after crashing a film set. Their fame collapses once sound movies arrive and expose their inability to follow scripts, pushing them to chase a new dream: making their own monster movie. Armed with a spellbook from a former evil sorcerer boss, they summon creatures to act in their film, befriend a cute Lovecraftian monster, and unintentionally unleash a chaotic, world‑threatening horde.

The Minions must then band together to fix the disaster they created, blending slapstick mayhem with colorful Old Hollywood flair. Directed by Pierre Coffin, the film features an all‑star voice cast including Trey Parker, Allison Janney, Christoph Waltz, Jesse Eisenberg, and Jeff Bridges. It celebrates creativity, teamwork, and the lovable chaos that defines the Minions’ misadventures.

Remember to grab your 30 Day Free Audible Trial - Link in the show!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to DMR, Dewey's Movie Reviews, the Red Carpet Treatment.

unknown 0:14

Enjoy the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Alright, alright, alright. So welcome back to DMR. Thank you for tuning back in as always. Much obliged. So I hope you enjoyed my review for disclosure day out now on all the major video formats, Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcast Video. And we are very psyched to be an early participant in the Apple Podcast video format shows or one of the shows. A lot of the bigger shows aren't on that format as of yet, so we're pretty pumped about that. But in order to keep things ticking along quite nicely, I'm going to be mixing it up. So I'm going to be doing my audio reviews only, which are the shorter format reviews. I'm going to be doing the longer video format reviews for bigger films that come out. And of course, the interviews, the DMA 4K vault interviews. We've got a new guest coming up next week, and we've got a fair few others that are looking to come on the show over August and September. So it's going to be pretty good. Pretty, pretty pumped. Haven't seen the Odyssey as of yet. That is making all the big headlines at the moment, despite the casting controversy. Apparently it's null and void. The scores on Rotten Tomatoes for the Odyssey are up in the high 90s. So I think no one is going to knock this one out of the park, despite all the hoo-ha around it. So a reminder that DMR is part of the Audible Creators program. So what does that mean for you, the listener at home? Well, there's a link in my bio or in the show. You can jump on that link. It will take you over to Audible and you can start a 30-day free trial on behalf of DMR. That's right, 30 days for free. So what I can suggest, I'm going to be reviewing a kids' movie today. So jump on Audible and grab Pig the Pug. I listened to this audio book of 10 stories with my eldest boy Axel. He really does love Pig the Pug. And I'm not sure if it's all of the Pig the Pug books, but there's definitely 10 stories there. And that's definitely on Audible. So if you've got kids, they will love that one. And you can support DMAR if you stick around past the 30 days, terms and conditions do apply. So, alright, so this review is going to be for minions and monsters. So I went and saw a couple of kids' movies this week with my elders, it was Minions and Monsters and also Toy Story 5. So let's go over Minions and Monsters. It's going to be a shorter review, more of a bite-sized review of what I thought about the film.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Oh, you see those large, heavily armed men? They suspect you have killed their leader. Uh click? Okay. That was all right.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

So on Rotten Tomatoes here, Minions and Monsters. It's a PG rating. It's now playing. It's a one hour and thirty minutes, bang on. 90 minutes. It's for kids, family, comedy, adventure, and animation. Animation there. So Minions and Monsters, a 2026 film. On Rotten Tomatoes, it's certified fresh at 89% from the critics and 75% from the audience. So the synopsis is please hold while your call is transferred. This is the rambunctious, ridiculous, and totally true story of how the minions conquered Hollywood, became movie stars, lost everything, unleashed monsters onto the world, and then banded together to try and save the planet from Mayhem they had just created. That's pretty much it in a nutshell. So moving further down here, in terms of we got here the critics consensus, and the audience says, Critics consensus, the minions bring their pungents pangeants? What is that word there? Not entirely sure. For mayhem to Hollywood history in this affectionate and charming send up of movie making magic, turning out the franchise's most roundly enjoyable entry yet. Audience says balancing cuteness and chaos to hilarious slapstick effect, minions and monsters proves that more minions the merrier. So got down here, got here blah blah blah. We've got critics reviews. If this seventh iteration of the Despigable Me franchise isn't a laugh right, it's at least a Chuckle Fest three out of five. We've got here four out of five. Watching the minions being fed through modern times, industrial cogs of gate crashing, Busters Keaton, Steamboat, Bill Jr. is a joy. Cast and crew. Now this is a bit interesting. So you'd think that they would have the characters named or matching the cast members. It just says voice. So we've got here the director, which is Pierre Coffin. He is one of the voice actors. You've also got Alison Janey. Christoph Waltz is in it. I could pick up on his voice a little bit. And I thought, yeah, that's definitely him. You've also got Jeff Bridges. He plays a very overweight set of twins. I think it's both of them. Jesse Eisenberg, Zoe Diach, Dutch, Bobby Mohoyane, Phil Lamar. It just says we've got Trey Parker in there from South Park 2. It just basically says voice. Very strange. I don't know why that doesn't say who the characters are. But getting back to the movie itself. So minions, so where does it kind of kick off from? So the minions are always looking for an evil master to basically serve. And the movie kicks off well back in time, back in the ancient times, where I think they're in ancient Greece, and they come across a giant Cyclops and starts from there basically serving him. And with the minions, all hell kind of breaks loose, even though they mean well to try to serve their masters, they end up killing, I think, all of them. Along the way, they I think it's a wizard they come across, and they come across a book of monsters. And as time rolls on through the ages, we see them going from master to master to master, basically killing every one of them that they serve, and trying to continue to find who their next evil master is, and then we kind of roll up into the 19, could be the 1930s and 1920s in Hollywood, and they kind of stumble into acting and directing and whatnot, and the movies primarily focused around a lot of that. They become very successful and very rich as well in terms of what they do back in that particular period, and then something happens during the film where they have to do some speaking parts, but I'm pretty sure they will speak, it's I think it might be Spanish. They will speak kind of Spanish in the film, and they can't actually speak English, they get fired from the studio, and they want to start their own movie. Christoph Waltz is the main director who is their friend and says, Well, you need a monster, you need a camera, and they remember that they have this book of monsters, and they conjure up a lot of different styles. I think there's three styles of monsters, four potentially, and they unleash a whole heap of different monsters on Hollywood. So that's basically the plot in a nutshell. So let's go over my thoughts about the particular film, The Verdict. Again, this is gonna be a bite-sized review, and I'll tell you if it's worth seeing with your kids or not.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

You wrote a monster movie? What are you going to use for your monster?

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Alright, so Minions and Monsters. So again, it's an hour and a half movie. The runtime on it is fair, very fair for a kid's film. My eldest was very much enjoying the film as we watched it. The good thing about it as well, it was a through the week, because I'm off work at the moment, through the week, and the cinemas were probably about 80% full during school holidays. This is my kind of first school holidays, I suppose, with my kid that's in kindergarten, and got time off, a couple weeks off, so it's for the first kind of time that I'm going to the cinema during this time. School holidays that is so I'm seeing firsthand what it's like with a busy cinema. Again, it's good numbers, it's good numbers, which is it's encouraging to see because I see a lot of stuff that is not kids-related movies or whatnot, and a lot of the time you go on the weekends, it's not full at all. It's probably about 80% empty. So that probably won't be the case with the Odyssey, but it's still good nonetheless. So the storyline in it, it is a high-octane kids movie. This thing does not slow down at all. From start to finish, you don't really get a breath in it, and it's always in your face. That can be a good thing and a bad thing, but I found it pretty enjoyable. Again, it wasn't bored on my phone or anything like that, and the storyline flowed quite well, especially when it's set in the early or the golden age of cinema. So, cinematography in it again, it's a cartoon, so it all looks very crisp up on the screen when you are watching it, and they're very funny. The minions are quite funny little dudes when you watch them, and it was quite an enjoyable film. So we've got back here Universal Pictures is the distributor, uh, came out in well, I only came out this month, so all in all, did I feel that the Minions and Monsters was a good movie? Yeah, it is, it's a good solid family movie. There's a lot to choose from these days as well. Toy Story was quite good. I may do a review on that, but if it is still school holidays for you, it's pretty pretty good film to take your kids to go and see worth the movie stub. So I would probably give it a I don't know about my best rating to go and see it at the movies because it again it's for kids, but you can definitely buy it on Blu-ray or 4K if it comes out. But I'm sure your kids will love this particular film, so again, not bad at all, not a bad kids movie. So go and check that one out if you will. So thank you for tuning in to my review, bite-sized review. We're gonna again be mixing it up, as I said, with audio, the deep dive, 4K videos for larger movies, and of course the 4K DMR vault with the interviews that we've got coming up. So stay tuned, it's gonna be a pretty big back end of 2026. Very busy canvassing at the moment, and we're getting some very good replies and people that are interested, and not only just canvassing, people are approaching DMR as well, which is good. We've got publicist that are emailing us directly, so it's a very encouraging sign. So thank you for tuning in, and as per usual, leaders on the menji.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Uh uh, but this for the uh you've just experienced DMR, the red carpet treatment. Now, get your eyes to the movies.