With the summer wrapping up, these were the two biggest animated movies of the summer. Both established brands and both trying to keep the money train flowing by expanding this brand with spin-offs to keep their established IPs running when they should have ended years ago. One comes from the champion of critical and box office praise, Pixar Studios. The other from industry laughingstock and commercial crossover shills, Illumination Studios. One comes from the nearly thirty year critical and commercial kings that revolutionized the animation industry, the Toy Story franchise. The other comes from the most 2010 animation trilogy, Despicable Me franchise.
And by all these versuses comparisons, you guys are probably thinking, that my mind has been made up and the former has this in the bag. Everyone knows those Minions are a product of their time and people will look back on the Minions fad as ridiculous. Let's just say that both of these films surprised me...and I should have seen this surprise coming from a mile away. Like both films did the exact opposite of what I expected them to be.
So why not waste any time. What did I think of Lightyear? I thought...nobody cares about Buzz Lightyear in 2022 no matter who they get to voice him. And I should have seen this coming the moment this spin-off was announced. When Pixar said they were going to make a spin-off about the adventures of Buzz Lightyear, I thought to myself....that's a great idea. After all, they had the late 90s/early 2000s cartoon and that kind of sort of had a following. But with how well the Toy Story series has not only held up over the years, but have managed to grow their fanbase over time too; this made so much sense. Despite how you all may have felt about Toy Story 4, it had its fans and people were willing to continue to follow the adventures of these characters despite Toy Story 3 being the perfect ending. Yeah Toy Story 4 had another damn good ending....for Woody and Woody only.
I hate to break it to the Buzz stans out there, whoever they may be, but the Toy Story saga (to me) was more about Woody's journey than it was Buzz's. Woody was the one who kept evolving with each passing movie. Woody was the heart and the soul of his group of friends. Woody was always an interesting character and even with his "divisive" ending, it made perfect sense for his character and finding his purpose after Andy. Buzz, if we are being honest, hasn't been an interesting character since the first movie. Yeah he had his own stories in the sequels and I liked him in the second and third movie, it was quite obvious they had no idea what to do with him in TS4 and if we are being honest, his story wasn't really consequential in two and three except to find Woody in 2 and the factory reset of him in 3. Buzz didn't necessarily evolve in any of the sequels because he had his journey of self-discovery in 1 and more or less played the role of Woody's best friend in the rest of the series.
I say all that being because Pixar still hasn't learned that fact about Buzz in this spin-off movie. Did you all know that Lightyear was "Andy's favorite movie" in the year 1995. I say that being because that is such a huge stretch to try and tie in this dull boring movie to the Toy Story universe. Like my god you guys, Andy must have such shit taste in movies as a kid if this was his favorite movie. Buzz Lightyear as a character is probably more interesting as a toy than he is as a fictional character. Hell the 90s animated Buzz tv series has a more interesting Buzz Lightyear than this 'actual space ranger'. Stop me if you've heard this one before. The cocky protagonist messes up because he is cocky and now has to lead a random group of misfits to save the day. That is one of the most by the numbers plots I've come across that it needs to be market tested to see if it is still effective. Also if this 'movie within a movie' came out in 1995, it really must have been ahead of its time with LGTBQ+ characters and automated AI....yeah this is to 1995 what the original Planet of the Apes was to 1980.
And here's another thing. The movie itself doesn't feel like it knows who its aimed at. Is it aimed at 30 something year old Toy Story fans? Then why does it treat its audience so stupid with their modern day tropes and a plot twist so bad that it nearly ruined one of the funniest jokes of the Toy Story series for me? Is it aimed at kids? If it is, then this wouldn't hold your kids attention span. I've heard stories of children nodding off to this when it was in theaters. It couldn't hold the attention span of my two year old nephew as proof of this. The one and I do mean one good joke of this movie was the robot cat assistant. Who has one reoccurring joke that literally comes out of fucking nowhere every time and it made me laugh. Otherwise, the rest of these jokes mostly miss the mark and have me baffled as to who actually finds these jokes funny.
I honestly almost made this a sole review for Lightyear, but I guess I should talk about the Minions sequel. Did this one sneak up on anybody else too? Because it sure as hell snuck up on me. In a year where I thought nothing would top the Morbius memes suddenly came this meme that I might love nearly as much in the "Gentleminions". Look I do agree in a sense that trashing movie theaters is awful and I absolutely do not approve of that element to the meme. But seeing guys dress up and unironically (to an extent) enjoy the Despicable Me franchise, honestly brought joy to me. It also made me do some major reassessing to how I look at the Despicable Me films. I saw videos of some of these "Gentleminions" talk about how they grew up with the Despicable Me films and seeing these films still going strong from their childhood to adulthood? Yeah that is me with plenty of my nostalgic films of yesteryear. For example, I went to go see Shrek Forever After against my better judgment when I thought that the Shrek series should have stopped when 3 was such a letdown and I ended up liking it. And honestly if you really think about it, some could make a case that the Despicable Me films nearly mirror the trajectory of the Shrek saga. Right down to a disappointing third movie that should have ended the series, but they are going to continue it anyway. I absolutely do not see Minions 2 as the end of the Despicable Me series, not by a longshot. These spin-off movies absolutely make sense to continue, especially since Rise of Gru is on path to be the biggest domestic box office earner of the series so far.
So how was the quality of this one? Honestly, this proved another longstanding theory that I had about this franchise. The minions need Gru as much as Gru needs the minions to perfectly balance each other out. Because this was the best Despicable Me/Minions film since the second...and honestly you could make the case that this was funnier than Despicable Me 2 was and I thought that film was pretty funny too. Where the Minions spin-off movie failed was that you got the minions not playing off of someone else a good portion of the movie outside of Scarlet Overkill and even then, it is not as entertaining because Sandra Bullock does not have Steve Carrell's ability to be comedic against herself. Or maybe I am wrong about Carrell's abilities to do that because Despicable Me 3 was even worse than Minions and Carrell literally plays as Gru and his own twin brother. And that movie...was just. not. funny. Or good. Or anything really. It only existed to make money and hell even the minions subplot was not worth anyone's time really. Just an absolute waste especially since one of the creators of South Park, Trey Parker, was cast as the villain and Trey Parker rarely works outside of his own ecosystem with Matt Stone. If you really think about it, the minions barely interact with Gru outside of like one or two of them in that film.
I'm not going to sit here and give you a deep drawn out analysis of why Minions: Rise of Gru was some revolutionary animated flick. It absolutely was not that. If anything, it's just simple turn off your brain fun for the entire family. And honestly, there is nothing wrong with that from time to time. Especially after sitting through Lightyear and its tonally inconsistent hour and thirty minutes of my life that I am never getting back. I needed some lighthearted laughs and that is what this movie provided. If I could point out any criticisms, it is that the plot does end up running on fumes to barely qualify to meet a bare minimum runtime. But you know what? I at least didn't check my watch to see how much longer this film has compared to the former. Which is something you know?
So if you want a winner to this versus, then congrats to the Minions. You are the third best film of your franchise. Which is still fairly solid. Lightyear on the other hand...god what a waste of my time. When you are seriously making me consider how close to the very bottom you are on the Pixar totem pole; you've made a real bomb there. What a gigantic waste of potential that endeavor truly was.
Lightyear Final Grade: D
Minions: Rise of Gru Final Grade: B
