The new Minions movie is quite an event. In Argentina, for the second consecutive week, it was the great favorite of the public. The latest information available indicates that some 1,462,040 people have already seen it since its premiere on June 30. Worldwide, it has already grossed more than $400 million.
“Minions: A Villain Is Born”, directed by Kyle Balda and Brad Abelson was going to be released in July 2020 but was postponed due to the outbreak of the coronavirus. The strategy of waiting for the worst of the pandemic to pass before presenting it was very successful. But beyond the full rooms, there is much to tell about the delirious yellow beings .
This is the fifth film in the franchise, which was created by the French Pierra Coffin in 2010 with “My favorite villain”, in which the Minions made their appearance as Gru’s henchmen, the lovable thief who wanted to steal the moon and ended up adopting to three adorable orphans, Edith, Margo and Agnes.
“My favorite villain” had two sequels, in 2013 and 2017. With his particular way of speaking, where onomatopoeias coexist with Spanish, Italian, French, Japanese, Korean and Filipino, among other languages the yellow beings with blue overalls, goggles and one or two eyes, earned a place in popular culture, which led to their own movie in 2015, simply titled “Minions”.
The phenomenon is very present in our country. In fact, since there are reliable figures (in 1997), “Minions”, with 4,933,196 spectators, is the second most watched film in history in Argentine cinemas , only surpassed four years later by “Toy Story 4” with 6,631. 910 spectators. In that ranking, hegemonized by animated films, there is also “My favorite villain 3”, from 2017, with 3,834,960 tickets sold.
Generally, attention is paid to the humor and entertainment offered by these characters, but there are other relevant aspects. In the Minions universe, like other movies such as “Shrek” or “Hotel Transylvania”, the Manichaean idea of who are the “good guys” and who are the “bad guys” becomes more complex.
The historical and political references are a classic of the franchise, which led to speculation that Gru’s name – who speaks with a Central European accent – could come from the acronym for Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie, Soviet military intelligence.
One of the most striking political nods in the franchise is found in “Despicable Me.” When Gru needs financial support for his project to steal the moon, he goes to the “Bank of Evil”. A poster, he clarifies the name he used to have: “Anteriormente, Lehman Brothers” referring to the US banking institution that went bankrupt in 2008, strongly associated with the global financial crisis that began that year.
In “Minions” the origin of these immortal characters is told: from being origins as unicellular organisms, going on to deal with Tyrannosaurus (dinosaurs are a classic in animation), then dealing with other iconic references, such as the ancient Egyptians, Count Dracula and Napoleon, until reaching the year in which the film is set, in 1968. The action moves to Buckingham Palace, where they meet Queen Elizabeth .
In that movie we see that At the villains convention attended by the Minions in Orlando are the controversial former US president Richard Nixon and the genocidal Chilean Augusto Pinochet. Nixon reappears on a publicity poster for the elections that he finally won that year representing the Republican party.
The new movie is set in 1976 and shows Gru as a child. Here, we see the “Bank of Evil” again, although since the events are prior, there is no Lehman Brothers poster.
There is a very subtle political reference when one of the villains who attends the call made by “the Wild 6” to recruit new members of the gang. In the waiting room, a hooded man reads a remembered number of the humorous magazine “MAD” that came out in 1961: on the cover they congratulated the Republican candidate, the battered Nixon, who is the image seen in the film. What is not seen on the screen is that in that same issue of the publication, on the back cover they did the same with John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a way of cynically positioning themselves before reality.
The laughter heard in theaters at each Minions gag confirms the effectiveness of the proposal. The moment that provokes the biggest laughs is when the tres Minions -Kevin, Stuart y Bob- they get tearful eyes in the style of Puss in Boots from “Shrek”. The other featured Minion also generates very good reception, Ottowho wears orthodontic braces.
Entertainment and humor are complemented by a very successful vintage aesthetic, including a movie theater where they’re watching “Jaws” and a brief appearance by a Scooby-Doo-like truck. Clothes and hairstyles according to the era. Beautiful images of different aspects of San Francisco are also highlighted, such as the steep streets, the typical architecture of the houses, the Golden Gate and Chinatown. That is the city she is taken to when Gru is kidnapped by her most admired villain, Willie Cobra.
Cobra, who ends up being a kind of father figure to Gru, is betrayed by the other members of “the Savage 6”, a group of villains who steal a precious magical jewel, the Zodiac Gem. These characters, who end up being led by Donna Disco, make the film have a lot of Martial Arts, as is the Chinese acupuncturist, Master Chow, who teaches the Minions kung fu. In fact, the voice of Pierre Pinza, one of the villains in the original version was done by Jean Claude Van Damme.
One of the highlights of the film is the soundtrack., which includes covers of songs by Kool and The Gang, Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto, Nancy Sinatra, The Carpenters, John Lennon and Santana, among others. A song that came out in the same year as the film is also played, in this case sung by its own authors: “Blitzkrieg Bop”, by The Ramones. Already in the trailer, “Sabotage” by Beastie Boys was playing, which although it is from the nineties, has a video clip that cultivates the aesthetics of the seventies. The Rolling Stones are also present with “You can always get what you want”.
As usual, the Minions themselves sing, in this case “Cecilia” by Simon and Garfunkel. For his part, Gru as a child performs “Bad Moon Rising” in the shower, the classic immortalized by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
All this musical background works as an incentive for adults who take children to the movies. At the same time, since the youngest are probably unaware of all the references, the film can be a great gateway to the music of the sixties and seventies .
Precisely, it was the public of the so-called “Generation Z”, that is, the people born at the beginning of this century, who starred in a phenomenon in the networks originating from the Minions. Dozens of young people from different countries congregated in theaters dressed elegantly, as “gentleman”and then publish the images on TikTok and other networks with the hashtag #Gentleminions.
According to some reports, some cinemas in England and the United States would have prohibited the entry of these groups due to the alleged inconvenience they caused other spectators by throwing popcorn and making noise during the film. Groups dressed in that way also attended some cinemas in Argentina without anyone complaining about their presence.
The emotion of young people is logical, if one takes into account that most were just children when the first film came out, in 2010. In other words, grew up with the franchise . After two years of waiting, the expected finally arrived.
From Universal Pictures, the company that owns Illumination, the film’s producer, endorsed the followers. “To all those who show up to see the Minions in suits: we see you and we love you” , they wrote on twitter. Laconic, from the Minions account they answered referring to the fashionable hashtag: #Gentleminions.
to everyone showing up to @Minions in suits: we see you and we love you. 🫶
— Universal Pictures (@UniversalPics) July 1, 2022
But not only young people are interested in the world of the Minions. Recently, a report was published Quentin Tarantino the director who is a well-known lover of animation, where he said that in addition to being a fan of “Peppa Pig”, the first movie he saw with his son was “My favorite villain 2”
.The phenomenon of the yellow beings has already taken root and unites several generations.
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