Illumination Entertainment
If Jim Morrison was livid about a song by The Doors being used to sell a Buick, I wonder what he’d think of “Break On Through (To the Other Side)” being in a trailer for a kid’s movie based around hordes of evil but adorable little cartoon characters. Maybe that’s part of someone’s master plan, to keep the singer rolling in his grave through eternity. The tune features in the latest spot for the animated spin-off/prequel Minions, joining the first trailer’s employment of the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Foxy Lady,” also re-used here, to put us in the setting of 1968 America. That’s 42 years pre-Gru, as we’re told at the start of the new trailer, as that’s the length of time before the release of the original Despicable Me.
This second trailer is like a continuation of the first, which gave us a bit of history of the yellow henchmen through the eons and landed them in New York Harbor. Here we follow them as they hitchhike to Orlando to attend an event known as Villain-Con, where they meet their next (pre-Gru) boss, Scarlet Overkill. She’s voiced by Sandra Bullock, who hasn’t been an animated character since 1998’s The Prince of Egypt, and she thankfully doesn’t sound too distractingly familiar. Neither does Jon Hamm as her husband, Herb Overkill, if that’s even who that is with her (I don’t think it is). At least one voice is truly unmistakable: Allison Janney as the mother who invites the minions into her car.
Minions is helmed by Pierre Coffin (co-director of the other two Despicable Me movies and the voice of main minions Bob, Stuart and Kevin) and Kyle Barda (co-director of The Lorax) and has a script written by Brian Lynch (Hop). Other actors lending their voice to its characters include Michael Keaton, Steve Coogan and Katy Mixon. You can see it in theaters in the US beginning July 10th – or, if you’re a minions mega-fan and can’t wait that long, most of the world is getting it up to three weeks earlier.
