Review: Henchmen is the poor supervillain’s Minions

Henchmen

Directed by Adam Wood

Written by Jay D. Waxman, Adam Wood

Featuring the voices of James Marsden, Thomas Middleditch and Rosario Dawson

Classification: PG; 89 minutes

Rating:

Doomed, drably uniformed and criminally undertrained, the goons and lackeys of supervillains have never been given a fair shake, from James Bond to Batman to Austin Powers. (The flying monkeys of The Wizard of Oz and the titular thingies from 2015′s Minions being notable exceptions.)

But now, with the zippy (if slightly confusing) animated feature Henchmen, the stooges and underlings of the world unite – literally, in the Union of Evil.

In a film from Adam Wood and Canada’s Bron Studios, Thomas Middleditch voices Lester, an orphan teen who cheers for evildoing masterminds. He finds himself a reluctant mentor in Hank, a cynical and disgraced henchman with a heart of gold.

Will Hank, Lester and a blue-collar team save the world from Baron Blackout? Will monosyllabic-Russian and angry-black-man characters play to stereotypes? Will a classic-rock soundtrack featuring the songs of Sweet, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Edgar Winter tingle the bones of fogies and turbocharge the children? We have a hunch they will.

Henchmen opens Dec. 7.