Ok. On the minions a second. I've seen the first one more times than I can count, little kids and all. First of all, it's a little kids movie. I hope nobody was expecting Shakespeare or Laurence of Arabia. Most (but not all) kids movies are crap. So comparing apples to apples, DM wasn't near as bad as it could have been. Certainly better than Elmo. Honestly, I was more worried about Russell Brand in a kids movie than I was annoyed about the minions. At first.
My kids figured out the lesson pretty quick. Gru was a weirdo. He talked with an accent, looked odd, his house didn't really fit in with the rest of the neighborhood. But under all that, he wasn't really a bad guy. When the kids took the time to get to know him, they realized that. So my kids took away that it was a movie celebrating inclusion and going beyond skin deep. There are worse lessons from movies for young'uns.