MINIONS and MONSTERS-Most Entertaining Minutes at the Start, Sadly Falls Apart

I took my 4 year old nephew, Ames, to see MINIONS and MONSTERS. He would tell you, "It was funny and I liked it." I agree that it was delightfully funny and I did like it - but only up to a point. The clever opening with a tour through a movie studio with loving tributes to favorite family films was a lot of fun. A scene where George Lucas was encased in glass was delightful. So too were the homages that would charm cinephiles. Hats off to Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplain, Orson Wells and other visual treats. I was captivated by the tributes more so than my nephew.  It was a lot of fun watching the minions searching for a vicious villain to serve and conjuring up monsters from the wizard's magical book. Here Ames and I were aligned. And, the beginning friendship of James and Henry (note not Henry James) this isn't classic literature after all, was warm and touching. Sharing a sense of humor does a friendship make. Perhaps, James and Henry will be counted among Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy if they can sustain their routines. Maybe they're likened to the silent screen stars because their language is non-decipherable except for a few words and expletives now and then. However, in the framing of the film, our tour guide (voiced wonderfully by Allison Janey) is befuddled that her group were not familiar with James and Henry whom she credits with saving the movie industry. The film goes to flashback to explain how the minions' mayhem brings them into Hollywood where they are befriended by a movie director and their careers are quickly launched and just as quickly quenched by their antics. So far so good for both Ames and me. But the ending subplot of an alien robot who falls for a lovely suffragette becomes supercilious.  It becomes way too juvenile when the adorable ET like creature conjured by James and Henry, resurrects his  monster buds, including an orange blob with millions of eyes that begins taking over all of Hollywood. I would have shut this Saturday morning cartoon plot line and sophomoric monsters which dragged down an up to then enjoyable movie. The tour guide needs to be corrected of her understatement regarding James and Henry saving the movie industry was actually an unbeknownst saving the world from monsters and aliens. Ames said "I liked the parts with the orange blob kept getting bigger and all the space ships." (A heavy handed salute to the star war movies). I did enjoy the more sophisticated satirical humor and Easter eggs that flooded the first half of the movie. MINIONS and MONSTERS attempted to be all things to all ages. By doing so, it did not achieve a thumbs up from me. However, Ames gave it 2 thumbs up. Yes, Ames and I are the best of friends.