The cute kids and hilariously bizarre
minions meant that Despicable Me was an easy film to fall in love with.
The sequel although inevitable
was not unwelcome.
PLOT: Now settled with Margot (Miranda Cosgrove),
Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Elsie Kate Fisher) Gru (Steve Carell) is living the life as a happily
retired villain. The family setting is interrupted
when Gru is recruited by the Anti-Villain League to catch a criminal who is
hiding out in a local mall. END PLOT
The plot of Despicable Me 2 doesn’t
miss a single beat in terms of predictability.
The script covers family drama, mother issues, father issues, dating issues and of
course self-acceptance. There are a lot of plot threads contained
within the 98min (IMDB) running time. A little
bit of trimming here and there would have tightened up the film and brought it
down to a solid 90mins.
The story-line is a paint by
numbers affair but as soon as you sense the monotony creeping
in the ridiculously adorable Agnes or the minions appear on screen. Despicable Me is a simple premise but cleverly
knows when to play its ace cards.
Steve Carell is excellent as Gru
and more importantly the voice work of Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier and Elsie Kate Fisher is perfect.
The humour is a mixed bag. I will never find fart joke humour funny and
I didn’t hear shrieks of laughter coming from the younger members of the
audience. Perhaps it is time to retire
this particular brand of comedy. It is lazy.
There are some witty one liners but
as expected the vast majority of the giggles comes from the minions.
The animation is similar to the first
film however it isn’t up there with Dreamworks or Pixar. This isn’t a criticism as Despicable Me
2 is a bright and colourful film. I
commend it for not being released in 3D.
Despicable Me 2 was everything I
expected it to be. I have a real
affection for the first film and the sequel lived up to the hype. It didn’t surpass the original though – it just
lacked that extra something special.
Despicable Me 2 gets a very respectable 7.5/10.
I thought the first film was decent but not great, sounds like this one is up the same ally.
ReplyDeleteYou have essentially reviewed the film.
DeleteI have an affection for the first and the sequel was more of the same. I think that if you have an opinion on the first you can pretty much copy and paste it onto the second!
K :-)