“Minions” is ninety minutes of random wackiness, a pleasantly harmless and inconsequential origin story for those tiny, yellow goggle-eyed sidekicks to “Despicable Me,” aka evil genius Gru.
Built on an across-the-epochs search for the ultimate villainous “Boss,” from T-Rex through Sandra Bullock, it plays to the youngest movie goers, who’ll giggle at the sight gags and get the jokes, even if they’re told in gibberish that the adorable little freaks use to communicate.
Geoffrey Rush narrates a brisk opening, which takes Minions out of the primordial muck and into the ill-fated service of cavemen, dinosaurs and abominable snowmen. Their bosses always seem to get squished.
Then in the Swinging ’60s, the intrepid trio of Kevin, Bob and Stuart leave their ice cave paradise in search of new employment. They hear of Villain Con, a convention of evil geniuses. That’s where they’ll go to find their future and save their little tribe by scoring an offer from one of the many Supervillains who attend.
Some bits work on an adult level. They hitch a lift with a cheery, convention-bound family (Allison Janney and Michael Keaton provide the voices) who turn out to be bank robbers — even the kids.
They’re headed to Orlando, home to many of the nerdiest “Cons” (conventions), even in those pre-Disney, pre-Universal Studios days. Apparently.
And then there’s the villain who hires them. Scarlet Overkill (Bullock) is way over the top, Queen of the Bad Guys. With the aid of her gadget guru spouse (Jon Hamm, unrecognizable and hammily hilarious), she wants to be Queen of England. As a test, she sends the trio in yellow off to steal the crown of a feisty Elizabeth II (Jennifer Saunders).
No, the kids won’t get the “Mind the gap” or Beatles’ “Abbey Road” gags, but they will snicker through assorted royalty riffs. And the Minions’ gibberish, sort of an R2-D2/Esperanto polyglot with snatches of Japanese and Hebrew mixed with generous helpings of Spanish and Italian, is deployed to good effect.
“Kumbaya!”
The real rib-splitter here is that somebody got a screenwriting credit for this mishmash, and that they had the gall to slap 3D ticket prices on it. But “Minions” will tickle the very young and has roughly twice as many laughs as those Disney “Planes” pictures, or Pixar’s “Monster’s University.” So “Kumbaya,” kids, kumbaya.

MPAA Rating: PG for action and rude humor

Cast: The voices of Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Allison Janney, Michael Keaton, Geoffrey Rush, Jennifer Saunders
Credits: Directed by Kyle Balda, Pierre Coffin, script by Brian Lynch. Universal release.

Running time: 1:31