Minions: The Rise of Gru

About the film

Contains story spoilers.

Minions: The Rise of Gru imagines its future supervillain as an eleven-year-old with a basement lair, homemade outfit and more ambition than sense. In 1976, Gru hopes to join the Vicious 6, a celebrity-level team of villains whose members have betrayed their founder, Wild Knuckles. Gru’s Minions help him prepare for an interview, but his audition collapses into an argument. He still steals the group’s zodiac stone, a powerful object associated with the Chinese zodiac, and escapes with Kevin, Stuart and Bob.

Gru entrusts the stone to Otto, who swaps it for a pet rock at a child's birthday party. The stone then reaches a biker, leaving Otto chasing the necklace he wears. Furious at his missing prize, Gru fires the Minions and sets out alone, only to be kidnapped by Wild Knuckles. The old villain takes him to San Francisco and demands the stone as ransom. Kevin, Stuart and Bob must now save the boss who has dismissed them, while Otto follows a separate route after the object. His mistake has created two journeys whose travelers do not yet know how they will meet again.

Wild Knuckles is not the simple monster Gru expects. His former teammates tried to kill him, and he sees in the child a mixture of talent, vanity and nerve worth testing. Gru wants recognition from the Vicious 6, but time with Knuckles gives him a less glamorous model of villainy: loyalty can come from people who are not impressed by his résumé. Their uneasy connection keeps Gru’s ambition from being merely a gag. He is still a boy pretending to be an adult criminal, but now someone treats him as a possible apprentice rather than a nuisance.

The Minions' rescue effort takes an unexpected turn when Master Chow saves them from Wild Knuckles' henchmen. A former kung fu teacher now working at an acupuncture clinic, she agrees to train them. Their unruly bodies become animated choreography of kicks, falls and improbable teamwork. The movie borrows the shapes of martial-arts training but makes concentration especially difficult for pupils who can barely stop distracting one another. Michelle Yeoh's voice gives Chow an authority very different from the villains' boasts. She can recognize a useful movement inside their disorder, and her confidence provides a steady rhythm against their impatience. Practicing together becomes a way for the three to accomplish something more deliberate than another accidental escape.

The long pursuit uses several comic strands at once. Kevin, Stuart and Bob reach San Francisco through mishaps and stumble into training; Otto’s chase turns into a journey with a biker whose necklace is the real stone. Gru’s captivity meanwhile forces him to rely on Wild Knuckles, even though both would rather look independent. The edit cuts between their separate routes toward the same object, giving Otto’s mistake consequences instead of treating it as a disposable joke. Each group has to understand that its part of the rescue cannot succeed without the others.

The separate journeys converge during a Chinese New Year parade. Gru and Otto reunite with the stone, but the Vicious 6 capture Gru and suspend him from a clock tower. Their zodiac transformations make the villains enormous, while Kevin, Stuart and Bob become a rabbit, rooster and goat. They must apply Chow's training in these unfamiliar bodies. Wild Knuckles joins the fight and is badly burned, while Otto frees Gru. Once the villains are defeated, Gru uses the stone to turn them into rats and restore his Minions. He reconciles with the crew he fired; they have earned his gratitude through a rescue rather than an audition.

The Vicious 6 are arrested, and Wild Knuckles is hospitalized before being presumed dead. Gru gives a funeral speech, then discovers that his mentor has faked the death. Their farewell leaves room for a continued life of mischief rather than a solemn lesson in becoming respectable. Gru later hires Dr. Nefario, bringing another distinctive personality into his developing operation. Steve Carell's voice has to suggest the familiar would-be mastermind at a smaller, less assured scale. Gru can announce grand intentions and still sound wounded when adults dismiss him. Alan Arkin gives Wild Knuckles a rougher confidence, with irritation that Gru initially mistakes for the authority he wants to copy. Their scenes work through a mismatch of experience: a boy imagines villainy as membership in an admired club, while an older criminal has just learned how disposable membership can become. Pierre Coffin's Minions approach that problem through movement and sound. Otto's earnest pursuit differs from the trio's competitive scrambling, allowing the split rescue to have distinct comic personalities. Their invented speech need not explain every thought, because posture, hesitation and the direction of a glance make the immediate task understandable. The final teamwork gathers these separate approaches into one rescue without making the Minions suddenly sensible.

Kyle Balda, Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val use a saturated 1970s palette, exaggerated silhouettes and dense background gags to make transitional scenes busy. The soundtrack and period details establish disco, flamboyant costumes and elaborate lairs without interrupting the comic rhythm. Gru’s tiny scale against the Vicious 6 emphasizes his lack of preparation, while the Minions’ physical comedy keeps action readable as bodies ricochet across the frame. The result ties a prequel’s backstory to an emotional shift: the would-be villain begins trying to prove he deserves a place among strangers and ends with a team that has already chosen him.