GRAB a banana and do the Macarena, the Minions are back!

It’s been a long time coming but they’re zanier than ever and ready to shake up big screens across the globe.

Seven years have passed since the release of the first Minions film. That being the billion dollar spin off to Universal and Illumination’s already colossally successful Despicable Me series. Part two - The Rise of Gru - was originally due for release two years ago. Indeed, the film is the last of the delayed class of 2020 to finally hit cinemas.

For the uninitiated, a minion is a small, yellow creature, with one or two eyes, typically found wearing blue dungarees. Minions are natural born sidekicks and, as the first film explored, have been drawn to apex predators from the dawn of time. They’re also obsessed with bananas.

In the Despicable Me films, the minions work for hapless criminal mastermind turned loving Dad Gru. But that’s all in the future here. As with Minions, The Rise of Gru serves as a direct prequel to the main series, which is set to continue in 2024.

The film picks up more or less where its predecessor left off - in 1970s America. The minions have now met and adopted as their leader a young Felonious Gru. At just 12-years-old, he’s no criminal mastermind but the intent is all there.

Top of Gru’s agenda is joining supervillain A-Team the Vicious 6. When a vacancy opens, and his application doesn’t quite go to plan, it’s not long before Gru is on the run and in possession of a stolen gemstone. He will find guidance from an unlikely source on his journey and, of course, be inadvertently hampered by his well-meaning minions.

The Rise of Gru is very much business as normal for the Despicable franchise. A hot pot of slapstick and silliness with a side serving of the saccharine. Steve Carell, once again, plays Gru, while Pierre Coffin voices Kevin, Bob, Stuart and innumerable other minions.

Joining the ensemble, Taraji P. Henson, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Lucy Lawless star as members of the Vicious 6, while Michelle Yeoh and Alan Arkin show up as allies. Watch out too for a return for Julie Andrews as Gru’s unorthodox mother Marlena.

Lightyear has proved a surprise failure at the box office. Minions 2 has nothing to fear.