Marval Movie

Despicable Me 2 is the start of another franchise for Illumination Entertainment. Like the first movie it has its charm, wit and color as well as a little heart for luck. It has the same characters, some new characters and gives you more of what the audience has been asking for.

The movie picks off where the last one left off, with Gru a former villain and now a full time father. Looking after all three of his daughters. Civilian life is going well for Gru but its not meant to be because he is soon requited by the Anti Villain League, an organization dedicated to battling super-villains. They have brought in Gru to tackle a villain who poses a much bigger threat.

The first Despicable Me is the Frenchest movie that I have ever seen, from its comedy to the drawing style. Director Pierre Coffin is French so that makes scenes but he really turns the dials up to ten on everything he does. This movie is just as French with...well everything. This really is a sequel that stands on the same level as the first movie, nothing is less but also nothing is topped form the first movie. 

The minions this time get more screen time and more emphasis from the last movie and you really see that both the director is playing favorites and the movie is listening to popular demand. That's not really surprising seeing that they are in fact voiced by the director himself. Yes they are funny but frankly their charm is beginning to grow thin, not too much...yet. But they need to be aware of this, its like having too much candy, you just begin to feel sickly. I dont feel reassured that they are getting their own spinoff movie.

One of the delights of this movie is the new character of Lucy Wilde, Gru's new partner. She is voiced by Katolik Wiig and that's a big plus for me. I love her work as Lola on The Looney Toons Show and she brings her great comedic talents to this role to. She is essentially Lola as a spy and that's just great. I got the feeling that Wiig was working on the script level of her character because so much of the character was her exact style of comedy. My favorite character in the movie and was worth the experience for me.

One of the problems with the comedy is that I was always able to predict where the joke was going or what the punchline would be. A huge part of comedy is the surprise, the unexpected, so if your able to predict everything and there's no new twist or something unique to the comedy then it will never reach the point of true hard laughter and just reach grinning and/or chuckling stage which is what I was in for most of the movie.

The villain this time is El Macho. He is now voiced by Benjamin Bratt, but he was originally voiced by Al Pacino. Yes, Pacino voiced the character, the animators dubbed the character to his performance but at the last possible moment Pacino pulled out of the movie and he had to be replaced three months before the movie was to be released. The reason for why Pacino pulled out is a little unclear, apparently he was unpleased by his performance so he pulled out. As for Bratt, he has the rather unfun task of having to match his performance to what has already previously been performed by Pacino, which weighs down his performance. I'm not sure if I would have picked up on that if I didn't know that, but I did so it was on my mind. Still what we get is a rather fun villain, who's colorful with a flare for life.

What I admire most about the movie is the scale. Nearly all the jokes are visually based and they go to very extreme lengths to get the joke across. When a joke needs to happen which involves multiple characters, then there are many characters on the screen etc. 

Despicable Me 2 has enough going for it so that the children will definitely have more than a good time. The adults will be fine they wont hate themselves for. The movie wont really teach your children anything or carries itself with any great weight but it still does no harm. Its a simple fun kids movie that delivers a simple fun time.

Rating: 3 stars out of 4