Gru and his family are back in the inevitable sequel to the refreshing and unexpected Despicable Me, and this time out we find him living a happy quiet life with his adopted girls, having now retired from super-villainy, as they encourage him to go out and find love. Meanwhile, he’s been hired by the Anti-Villain League to go undercover and find a new villain who stole a formula that turns living things into mindless mutant killers. The film is plenty cute, and kids will most likely eat this film up, but Despicable Me 2 unfortunately loses a lot of the heart of the original and leaves very little in the story for the adults to stay interested.
[pullquote_right]The film is plenty cute and kids will most likely eat this film up, but it unfortunately loses a lot of the heart of the original.[/pullquote_right]The movie still looks great and is full of bright, gorgeous colors, fun character designs, and the Minions are still the hilarious shining point of the film, but too much of it felt forced and goofier than anything in the original. The most noticeable change is the frequent usage of physical, slapstick humor with characters falling down or getting bonked on the head. The first film had a bit of that, but also had the great character arc of Gru’s transformation from super-villain into a good guy/loving father figure, but this time out his search for romance is far less heartfelt and satisfying.
The voice cast are all still quite good and seem to enjoy the work they are doing. Kristen Wiig is bubbly and goofy as Lucy Wilde, an Anti-Villain League agent that becomes Gru’s love interest, but maybe pours it on just a bit too much. Steve Carell is having a great time as Gru and has some pretty good chemistry with Wiig, but some of the fun potential of their team-up to track down the villain feels like it might be sitting on the editing room floor somewhere.
[pullquote_left]The voice cast are all still quite good and seem to enjoy the work they’re doing.[/pullquote_left]Benjamin Bratt steps in to fill the role of Eduardo (vacated by Al Pacino due to “creative differences”) and brings a fun Latino flare to the role, but you can’t help but wonder if Pacino saw that the film was shaping up to be a bit of a wreck. In addition, the talents of Ken Jeong are wasted on a role that’s a tad bit racist and gets very little screen time, making his whole appearance just feel odd and shoe-horned into the movie.
The only scenes that really stuck with me after the screening and felt worth talking about afterwards either featured the Minions or a flashback to the villain El Macho (and his flashback is hilarious). The girls were part of the comedy and adoreableness of the original, but barely seem like the script knew what to do with them this time. Despicable Me 2 isn’t boring, it’s just there. Never bad enough to get worked up about or good enough to gush over, it’s just a film that, if not for the top-notch animation, might have felt suited for a direct-to-DVD sequel.
[pullquote_right]Never bad enough to get worked up about or good enough to gush over.[/pullquote_right]If you have kids and they want to see Despicable Me 2, I certainly would not dissuade anyone from doing so. It’s cute enough and the humor feels right in line with any of the silly slapstick stuff they probably enjoy in their cartoons, but it never gathers enough steam in its story or comedy that adults would appreciate, like the some of the other CG animated competitor films out right now.