Viewed in
2013
Formats
Movie theater.
Premise
Gru is recruited by the good guys to go undercover in a shopping mall.
Loved
Minions. Gru's adorable daughters.
Liked
Non-stop comedy.
Thoughts
A solid sequel that delivered big time on laughs.
Much like the first one, it was chock full of cartoony slapstick violence that harkened back to the Looney Tunes days, with a bit of James Bond parody, and a pinch of pop culture gags. Pretty much every joke hit, from fart guns to spy fails to "annoying" kid behavior to Minion madness. Each character got their moment of comedy that was either zany or spot-on.
There were at least three great moments that brought me to tears. One was Gru's camera belt that resulted in ridiculous pelvic thrusts, another was the Minions' fire alarm where an axe-wielding firefighter wantonly ploughs through everything. But the shout out to a certain 1990's music group put the Backstreet Boys cameo in This is the End to shame, and actually made my stomach hurt from laughter.
Look, the Minions were easily the most identifiable/marketable characters, and the film makers could've easily fallen into the trap of just having them hijack the sequel. Instead, they made an effort in not going hog-wild, keeping the focus on Gru, his love for his daughters, his new love interest, and spying. Gru remained incredibly likable as a tamed antihero, and his daughters remained as the heart of the franchise, with very funny subplots, though the middle child (much like real life) got the least attention.
The key word here was "made an effort". Underneath the zany jokes and adorableness, the plot wasn't really much. It lacked character arc and the mystery lacked intrigue. Having said that, it didn't really bother me, as the sheer amount of humor and charm kept me entertained throughout.
One thing that bummed me out was that I didn't get to see this in 3D. It was obvious that they'd done a much better job of giving the visuals even more juice with gravity-defying cinematography and gratuitous in-your-face shots.
But the bigger bummer (personally) was that it set the bar really high for the Minions spinoff and the rumored Raving Rabbids movie. As a huge fan of the twisted video game franchise, I can already see people calling those demented bunnies a ripoff of the yellow pills of slapstick, even though the Rabbids existed (in video game form) years before.
Despicable Me 2 was a joy to watch. I had many laughs and squees from the grumpy Gru, adorable girls, and maniacal Minions. I highly recommend it for its offbeat cartoony comedy and better-rendered zombie scenes than World War Z.
