EARLIER, movies had sequels, but now filmmakers have started coming up with prequels in order to keep movie-hungry fans sated and hooked on to their franchise. Minions, a prequel to the hit Despicable Me franchise, offers youngsters something adorable to watch this summer.

For those who don’t know what Minions are, here is a quick intro — Minions are little unicellular yellow creatures that have existed before the dawn of time, with high-pitched voices and speak a language that you can’t understand, and they “live to serve”, so they need to have a master all the time.

But the interesting part is that they like serving only the bad guys, and all the baddies throughout history have been their masters, but in most cases the Minions are so inapt that they end up harming or killing the person they serve.

Minions, the movie, is set in the 1960s, and takes us from America to Antartica and finally to England where the three main characters — the fearless Kevin, the teenager Minion Stuart and the adorable Minion Bob — serve under their latest master, a super villainess Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock), the world’s first female supervillain.

The rest of the Minions in Antarctica get into trouble when they unintentionally kill their master, a Yeti, and so to escape the anger of the rest of the Yetis, they head to London in search of Kevin and a new master. Being a prequel, the movie ends with the minions chasing Gru to become their new master.

The soundtrack features some old songs from the 1960s that kids will not identify with but it goes with the setting of the movie that is otherwise a treat.