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\n\tWhile the Toy Story movies look to the digital future of entertainment, the Despicable Me<\/a> franchise is going way, way back into its analog past. Even movie buffs will be surprised just how much of a deep dive into Hollywood history Pierre Coffin\u2019s latest animated offering, Minions<\/a> & Monsters, is taking \u2014 the opening credits alone trace the history of the Universal logo back to the silent-era days of The Trans-Atlantic Film Company \u2014 but arcane references to Eadweard Muybridge, the Lumi\u00e8re brothers and Georges M\u00e9li\u00e8s are mostly just sophisticated window-dressing for an enjoyable kid-friendly Hellzapoppin\u2019-style slapstick comedy.<\/p>\n \n\tThe events of the more straightforward Despicable Me movies are mentioned, if at all, mostly in passing; instead, the framing device sees a group of tourists being ushered by tour guide Olivia (Allison Janney<\/a>) through a Hollywood hall of fame, which celebrates films such as The Matrix and Airplane! and features the actual George Lucas in a Perspex showcase (\u201cI\u2019d really like to go home now,\u201d he complains softly). Olivia stops at an exhibit depicting two Minions, James and Henry (all the Minions are voiced by Coffin), and is perplexed when no one present appears to have heard of them, at least by name.<\/p>\n \n\tThere begins a lengthy flashback explaining the nature of the Minions, how they have spent centuries crossing continents to find the perfect evil master to serve. One-eyed ogres, pirate kings, ancient mummies\u2026 the Minions try their best, but always end up nearly killing them, which is how things end when they try to become a sorcerer\u2019s apprentices. Moving swiftly into the 1920s, they latch onto a cowboy bandit who robs a bank and makes a daring escape by horse, train and airplane. Only, he isn\u2019t a villain at all, rather an actor working on the new film produced by the Bright brothers (Jeff Bridges).<\/p>\n \n\tThe film\u2019s director, a European \u00e9migr\u00e9 named Max (Christoph Waltz<\/a>) and modeled very much on the directors fleeing Germany in the early 20th century, is distraught when the Minions crash his meticulously plotted action scene and cause havoc in the streets of Los Angeles. The Bright brothers, however, think \u201cthose sickly children\u201d are a laugh-riot and offer them a contract, a rocket-ride to overnight stardom that is covered in a very funny News on the March-style newsreel, one of several nods to Citizen Kane. Surprisingly, this is not entirely where the film is going; a little before the halfway mark, the Minions mess up yet again (leaving a vacuum, one imagines, the Three Stooges will soon fill).<\/p>\n \n\tJames, however, hasn\u2019t given up on his dreams of becoming a movie director and winning an Oscar (which, in Minions World, is a gold banana). This fantasy inspires him to come up with storyboards for Minions y Monstras, a horror film which will pit the Minions against a terrifying cabal of monsters. This is where the sorcerer\u2019s book of spells resurfaces; James and Henry succeed in summoning a playful demon, Goomi (Trey Parker<\/a>), a kind of Funko Pop! Cthulhu, who tricks the Minions into releasing his friends from purgatory.<\/p>\n