The Vicious 6 show up to extract a pound of flesh from her anyway.

“Don’t call my mother for ransom,” Gru begs, “she will probably pay you to keep me.” Gru’s mean ol’ Mom is once again played by Julie Andrews, who characteristically has no use for her son nor his henchmen. As punishment, Gru is subjected to a type of torture I would happily endure: He’s tied to a giant record player that will spin, for 48 hours straight, the greatest disco song ever recorded, the Andrea True Connection’s “More More More.” Knuckles, Otto, the newest, and most talkative of the Minions, has traded the jewelry for a pet rock. Well, those two kind of go together Gru’s been taken by Wild Knuckles in an attempt to retrieve what’s rightfully his. Belle and her crew pursue him in order to get them back.īelieve it or not, there are two other plot-heavy stories in “Minions: The Rise of Gru.” One concerns the surviving Wild Knuckles’ San Francisco-based quest for revenge, and the other involves the Minions learning kung fu from Master Chow ( Michelle Yeoh) in order to save Gru after he’s been kidnapped. Since he’s barely out of junior high, Gru is dismissed, but not before stealing the Zodiac Stones. Nefario gives Gru a 45 of Linda Ronstadt’s cover of “You’re No Good,” the key to entering the secret hideout. He enters the record store that secretly houses Belle Bottom’s lair, meeting his future colleague Dr.

Gru applies for the position and receives a response housed in a self-destructing 8-track tape. Now that the much-older Wild Knuckles is out of the picture, The Vicious 6-I mean Five-are looking for a much younger replacement. I told you this movie wasn’t that clever. Just kidding! He’s voiced by Jean-Claude Van Damme. His name is Jean-Clawed and he’s voiced by Steven Seagal. There’s Stronghold ( Danny Trejo), a nunchaku-wielding nun named Nun-Chuck ( Lucy Lawless), the Nordic strongman Svengeance ( Dolph Lundgren), and a dude with an enormous lobster claw for a hand. The other four members have equally pun-based names. With her ever-changing wardrobe and enormous Afro, (which is animated with an impressive amount of texture) Belle looks like Cleopatra Jones. Henson), who cruelly explains that honor among thieves is a myth before dropping him to his presumed death from their plane. Granted, that song came out in 1977, but “Minions: The Rise of Gru” uses Lipps Inc.’s 1980 banger, “Funkytown” not once, but twice.Īfter braving death to retrieve the gems, Wild Knuckles is betrayed by team member Belle Bottom ( Taraji P. Unfortunately, the filmmakers are not that clever. Considering all the groan-inducing needle drops that occur in this series, I expected The Zodiac Stones to be accompanied by that trash classic-slash-astrology lesson “Float On” by the Floaters. Once retrieved, it will give the Vicious 6 an unlimited amount of power on the night of the Chinese New Year. They are there to retrieve a necklace of gems called The Zodiac Stones. We see Wild Knuckles and his crew in action in an exotic, Indiana Jones-style locale. They affectionately call him 'mini-boss.' When he’s not wondering how his employees “got so much denim” for their outfits, Gru is fantasizing about joining The Vicious 6, an Avengers-like conglomerate of villains created by Wild Knuckles ( Alan Arkin). After their own prequel, “ Minions,” and a pit stop for the lackluster present-day sibling rivalry plot of “ Despicable Me 3,” Kevin Le Minion and his one and two-eyed pals have returned to the past to support the “eleven and three-quarters” years old version of Gru. They make me laugh and I’m not even remotely remorseful about that. Readers of this site know of my soft spot for the Minions, those yellow, pill-shaped purveyors of trouble who are hopelessly devoted to Gru ( Steve Carell).

Gru minions