Review: Monsters don’t live up to Minions in new film

But as the stars of their own venture, it’s a dicey proposition. The reason? They don’t have someone to play off of. Wile E. Coyote is nothing without the Road Runner.

“Minions and Monsters” suggests there’s a dandy villain. But the front end of the film places the Minions in the early days of Hollywood — and that’s a great launching pad. Setting them loose on classic stories is an inspired idea. Borrowing from Buster Keaton and others is great, too. But then, director Pierre Coffin decides to pit them against alien blobs and loses his momentum.

Two Minions, Henry and James, are the guides through Hollywood — and should have been the sole focus. But Coffin gets distracted and realizes he has to wrap it up somehow, and that’s how the blobs (including an eyeful called Irene) get in the picture.

They’re not strong enough to warrant attention or a battle with umpteen Minions.

Coffin’s story is so disjointed, there’s a point in the 90-minute film where younger viewers will bow out. Even introducing the blobs isn’t enough to pull them back.

Considering Universal releases the Minions films, it’s curious why Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula and the Wolf Man weren’t the antagonists. That would have fit with the Hollywood theme and given the story the dimension it seeks — particularly since it has George Lucas in a display case early on.

Coffin throws in a lot of celebrity voices, too, but they don’t help the effort.

“Minions and Monsters” gives us plenty of the former but skimps on the latter. When you’ve got a villain as delicious as Gru, it’s hard to replace him with something less, well, formed.

One-half of a good movie is still one-half of a bad one.