The real monsters are the references we got along the way

It's been a big year for family and kid's films already (Toy Story 5 review will be incoming soon), and the latest one to hit the theaters (I will probably not be seeing the nightmarish-looking live-action Moana) is Minions and Monsters, the third standalone Minions film and the seventh overall in the Despicable Me franchise. "Returning" to the franchise is Pierre Coffin, who co-directed four previous installments and has always been the sole voice of every Minion. (How can you have your return be touted when you never stopped being the literal voice of the entire franchise, anyway?)

This time around, Coffin – for the first time – receives sole directing credit, as well as his first co-writing credit. The end result is the best-reviewed and (so far) lowest-opening installment in the big, sprawling franchise and very clearly a dumping ground for all of Coffin's most beloved cinematic inspirations.

A marked difference from the children's and family entertainment that I see these days versus the stuff that I watched when I was a kid (not to get all "kids these days" on you) is that it's very insular, and it's all very contemporary. Take, for example, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Take either of the Mario movies, I guess. Apart from needle drops, all of the references are to Nintendo media, either past or present. Galaxy is crammed full of Nintendo characters and things, but it's all in service of blowing up the presumptive Nintendo Cinematic Universe, and if a kid has ever heard of Super Smash Bros., that kid is probably familiar with the concept of video game characters under one umbrella all getting together in one place. Fortnite also makes kids familiar with the concept of big crossovers, although something doesn't really make it into Fortnite without being the biggest thing in the world. (The Simpsons, Star Wars, Marvel, Disney, the NFL ... uh ... Nerf.) When there are references, they're either there for the adults or they're a reference to something else that's extremely of the moment. Not that there's anything wrong with any of that. If you want kids to like something, it's not a bad idea to make it accessible and within their wheelhouse.

When I was a kid, there were broadcast channels that you had to turn a knob to watch, and rarely more than 13 or so of them. There weren't digital interfaces and DVR and pop-up menus, so you had to either check the paper or subscribe to TV Guide (or both) to actually figure out what was going to be on television and how you could try to watch it. If you were a kid and you liked TV and movies, you quickly became a little expert television journalist. I remember very vividly being the person who knew there were new TV shows debuting and telling my classmates when and where this sure-to-be-hit shows were going to be on.

But more than that: thanks to syndication, most things on television were old. Very old. Saturday morning and afternoon cartoons invariably included compilation shows of Disney shorts and Looney Tunes, and all of those were 50 years old and chock-a-block full of voices and references and things that you absolutely would not understand even a little bit if you didn't have an adult nearby at the exact moment one of these Bugs Bunny or Hanna-Barbera caricatures were onscreen. "Who is that supposed to be?" "Oh, that's Edward G. Robinson, he was in gangster movies." "Who is that bug-eyed guy?" "That's Peter Lorre, he played a lot of creeps." "Who is the guy with the big ears?" "That's Clark Gable." Gilligan's Island, The Love Boat, and the 1960s Batman were all full of guest stars and references. Hollywood Squares was the dumping ground for the remnants of Match Game. Star Search invariably included a comedy act with long-in-the-tooth impressions of stars from the past. And of course, if you liked Sesame Street or The Muppets at all, you quickly became acquainted with any number of obscure entertainers, from Zero Mostel to Mummenshanz.

This is all a longwinded way of saying that Pierre Coffin has used Minions and Monsters to suddenly swing into 2026 children's entertainment like a wrecking ball and drop bushelfuls of 100-year-old references on schoolchildren. And it's fantastic.

The opening credits splice the Minions into ancient silent films by the Lumière Brothers and Méliès, and apart from some detours into quasi-modern films (like E.T. and an inspired voice cameo from George Lucas), this movie about the movies is primarily invested in cinema prior to the advent of color film. (There's an extended side story paying homage to 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still, and apart from the modern-day-ish framing device, that's the most contemporary this movie gets.) We get cameos from Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. There is a cheeky reference to Babylon, the other recent movie that deals with this era of Hollywood. We begin with pre-code movies and the studio system and quickly arrive at talkies. Jeff Bridges plays twin corpulent movie bosses. In addition to the nonstop filmic references, this is in some ways the most adult in the whole franchise, as a character calls a Minion a "bastard" and the most antagonistic and disliked Minion is given the name of Dick.

The titular monsters in the movie are similarly rooted in the early 20th century, as they're all homages to the work of H.P. Lovecraft, but they take a backseat to the cinematic concerns that are front and center. At times it's hard to comprehend just how much happens in the breakneck 90 minutes here, but it all adds to the madcap glee that is the through line for the film. Just when you think a scene is beginning to drag, it's over, and some other wild thing is now happening.

Even if you've never seen another Minions movie, I think this one might be worth your time. If nothing else, it's nice to see animation getting back to its roots: dropping a whole bunch of obscure references that are funny on their own. You don't have to know that Yogi Bear is doing an Art Carney impression to think he's funny, and you don't have to know anything about film history to enjoy a bunch of little yellow guys chase a cowboy using a runaway train. It's fun if you don't know anything about silent film, and it's fun if you do. Way to go, Pierre Coffin. Welcome "back."