I just saw Minions and I was not impressed. The beginning where the Minions kept accidentally killing their bosses was quite fun, but once it settled into a plot with the supervillian trying to steal the crown jewels (and the crown itself), she was nowhere near as compelling as she should have been and when Gru shows up at the very end for about a minute, it reminded me of The Lazarus Effect (where the evil risen-from-the-dead woman after killing everyone resurrects her scientist boyfriend) in that the ending represented the movie that I wanted to see all along.

I was ok with the sequel. I don't remember much about it except it had more Gru interaction with the kids and there were some great mall scenes but I enjoyed it enough to recommend.