Minions & Monsters      Director: Pierre Coffin Cert: GStarring: Pierre Coffin, Allison Janney, Christoph Waltz, Jesse Eisenberg, Trey Parker, Zoey Deutch, Bobby Moynihan, Jeff Bridges, Phil LaMarr, George Lucas Running Time: 1 hr 30 minsFollowing on from 2022’s disastrous Minions: The Rise of Gru, Minions & Monsters puts Illumination’s irrepressible rabble right where they belong: in Hollywood’s silent era. Light on sentiment but rich in visual invention, this seventh entry from the Despicable Me sequence is easily one of the franchise’s most entertaining entries, and the best stand-alone Minions picture.Set in the 1920s, the high jinks find focus in James and Henry, two particularly accident-prone yet imaginative Minions whose search for a suitably villainous master lands them in La La Land. An exhilarating opener sees the babbling heroes toss a house on Buster Keaton, follow Charlie Chaplin into the cogs of Modern Times, and cause Harold Lloyd to fall from a clock face, After colliding with a western (possibly directed by an alt-universe Edwin S Porter), the gang catches the attention of exacting film-maker Max, voiced with delicious severity by Christoph Waltz, and launch the banana-hued mob into an unlikely career as silent stars.In common with Sunset Boulevard’s Gloria Swanson, the arrival of sound threatens their success, turning the Minions’ famously unintelligible babble into the film’s punchline. A framing device set in contemporary Universal Studios is less convincing, but it does provide a great George Lucas cameo.Director Pierre Coffin, making his first solo outing on the franchise while once again providing the voices of every single Minion, leans heavily into the characters’ roots in slapstick. The result is packed with affectionate nods to pre-Code Hollywood, while also finding room for playful references to Singin’ in the Rain, Jaws, The Blob and The Matrix.These touchstones, anchored in fond homage and carefully co-opted into the Minion-iverse, never feel like empty fan service but a playful commentary on cinema’s technological transformation. The voice cast is especially strong. Jeff Bridges huffs and puffs as a blustering studio executive; South Park’s Trey Parker channels a PG Eric Cartman for the nefarious, Cthulhu-inspired villain Goomi, while Jesse Eisenberg has a ball as the robotic Dort, a winning lift from The Day the Earth Stood Still. Coffin’s inspired vocal performance remains the franchise’s secret weapon, giving the Minions’ nonsense language a vaudevillian comical musicality.In cinemas July 1st