The Despicable Me franchise has a new crown jewel. Minions and Monsters, the seventh entry in the beloved animated series, has landed with an 89 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the highest rated film in the franchise’s history and setting a new benchmark for the series.
The film released on July 1, and its critical reception has been striking. Before this, the original Despicable Me from 2010 held the record with an 80 percent score on the review aggregator, a figure that had stood for over a decade through multiple sequels and spin-offs. Despicable Me 2 had scored 75 percent, while Minions: The Rise of Gru received 70 percent. Other entries in the series had fared considerably lower, making the new film’s score a meaningful leap forward for the franchise.
Rotten Tomatoes itself described Minions and Monsters as the franchise’s most roundly enjoyable entry yet, also calling it an affectionate and charming sendup of moviemaking magic. The description hints at a film that is both self-aware and warmly nostalgic, something the series has not always managed to pull off in its later instalments.
Individual critics have echoed that enthusiasm. Clint Worthington awarded the film three and a half stars out of four, while Drew Taylor of TheWrap suggested it could be the best film in the series since the very first Despicable Me, a comparison that sets high expectations for general audiences heading into the holiday weekend.
The film is directed by Pierre Coffin, who has been a central creative force behind the franchise since its beginning. He co-wrote the screenplay with Brian Lynch, and the voice cast assembled for the project is notably strong. Allison Janney, Christoph Waltz, Jeff Bridges, Jesse Eisenberg and Zoey Deutch all lend their voices to the film, giving it a depth of talent that distinguishes it from some of the franchise’s more modestly assembled entries.
For Illumination, the animation studio behind the series, the critical response is a particularly welcome development. The Despicable Me and Minions films have always been reliable commercial performers, but critical acclaim has not always followed. An 89 percent score suggests that Minions and Monsters has managed to find a balance between the broad appeal needed for family audiences and the wit and craft that critics tend to reward.
Whether the strong reviews translate into strong box office numbers remains to be seen as the film’s opening weekend gets underway, but on the evidence of the critical reception alone, the franchise appears to have rediscovered something that made the original so enduring.

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