介绍:
More often than not in the movie business, the best way to ruin a well-loved title is to make a sequel. And the best way to ensure its total degradation is to make a spin-off. Both happen to be efficient ways to extort the last penny possible from movie-goers, and that's why the allure of popular franchise inevitably wears off.
"Minions", the spin-off of the "Despicable Me" franchise is the best and latest example of that theory. The 2010 original featured a refreshing perspective on villains and that impressed the market. The following 2013 instalment was a fall from grace, but even worse is the 2015 spin-off that landed on "the Plain of Non-story."
The failure of "Minions" is not due to the ebbing interest on the part of the audience members, but rather bad decision-making by the filmmakers. I'm sure the movie fans would still love to see more villainous conducts on the big screen. In fact, when the young supervillain Gru appears at the end of "Minions", with those vicious sparks in his eyes, I could almost feel the same excitement as I felt when watching "Despicable Me" for the first time. The badass element was the key to its popularity.
But the filmmakers seem to have abandoned their trump card. In "Despicable Me 2", we no longer saw the wicked ambitions hitherto burning in the chest of Mr. Gru, instead there was a pinky glow of romance that compromised the movie's iconic yellow nuggets of cuteness. And then there is "Minions," whose villain Scarlet Overkill seemed to have a college degree in under-delivering. I have to say, revealing sad stories about the childhood of nefarious super villains is not cool at all, it amounts to acts of suicide for this evil-centric franchise.
But despite my discontent, it seems the filmmaker's decision to capitalise on the cute element is bearing tangible results, especially in the Chinese market. With more than 20 million US dollars income over the first weekend, "Minions" surpassed Kung Fu Panda 2 as the all-time top-grossing animated film for its opening day in China, and this is after another cuteness flick "Monster Hunt" dethroned "Fast and Furious 7" to become China's highest grossing film of all time.
The appetite for big-eyed, chubby figures remains robust, and the movie-goers have every reason to feel entertained by the neatly arranged amusing scenarios. But being sick and tired of these rampant cuteness, I personally will not spend another penny on any more spin-offs related to the yellow critters, I'll save it for David Ayer's "Suicide Squad."
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