I finally got around to seeing Despicable Me 2 this weekend. I had seen the first movie in theaters when it came out and had watched the Blue-Ray disc a few days before going to see the sequel to refresh my memory of the film.
If you hadn’t seen the first film it’s your typical story of a villain named Gru who adopts 3 little girls to use in his evil plans. Soon Gru becomes attached to the girls, and when another villain Vector, who wants to out do Gru, and in so doing kidnaps the girls as well. Thus or would be bad guy Gru, becomes a good guy to save the day and his girls. Simple enough plot and the comedy is pretty good, but what really made this movie is the minions.
These hilarious characters, take an okay film and make it memorable. The minions are genetically engineered beings that work for Gru. They look similar to tater tots or twinkies and speak in a somewhat gibberish language, but despite that, the audience knows exactly what they are saying. It’s both their cuteness and silliness that makes this film even more enjoyable.
In the new film, we find Gru, who has now given up a life of villainy to raise his little girls. However, without a life of ridiculous plots and schemes, there isn’t much of a film. So, comes in Lucy Wilde an agent for Anti-Villain League (AVL) who comes to recruit Gru. Now we have a villain turned good guy, spy.
With this plot, you can see where the film is going and that is a goofy spy movie. Not that it’s a bad film but overall it’s just way to predictable. From the very beginning your know the reason they have introduced a Lucy as Gru’s new spy partner (if you don’t then, you’ll be surprised). The girls’ role in the film seems a little less than the first one and the overall story seems a little rushed.
The minions still deliver humor and silliness, but again a lot of it is expected.
Although I have to say that the film was fun and entertaining, it somehow felt like I was watching a TV special instead of a full motion picture.
