Review: Yellow is the New Black (2018)

Directed by: Serguei Kouchnerov, Fabien Polack | 4 minutes | animation, short film | Original voice cast: Pierre Coffin, Brian T. Delaney, Carlos Alazraqui

Every Illumination fan is already counting on it: the studio adds a number of shorts to the home entertainment release of their animation films. Often one of them has already been seen in the cinema, as a warm-up for the main film and the others are new. “Yellow is the New Black” was shown in theaters as the opening act for “The Grinch”, the animated film in which the world-famous story of Dr. Seuss got an update. The film is of course also on the DVD and blu-ray of “The Grinch”.

In “Yellow is the New Black” we see the minions again, the figures that Illumination Entertainment became so big with. The unfortunate minions are in prison for unclear reasons and try to make the best of it with their eternal optimism. When they make fun of it at work, a prison officer gives them an extra punishment and they have to work outside in the blazing hot sun. Another prisoner sees his chance and (literally) uses the presence of the minions to escape. What follows is a super-fast edited video, in which both the minions and the prisoner have a number of narrow escapes.

“Yellow is the New Black” doesn’t have much to do, but the Minion aficionados will undoubtedly laugh about it.