Title: “Despicable Me 2”
Directors: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud
Writers: Cinco Paul, Ken Daurio
Starring: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Benjamin Bratt
My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
“Despicable Me” was a decent movie. It was different, enjoyable, and reasonably funny. “Despicable Me 2” tries to do the same thing. Almost exactly the same. In “Despicable Me 2,” Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), who is now reformed and a devoted father, is recruited by the Anti-Villain League to investigate a new potential threat.
This movie does some things better and some things worse than its predecessor. It’s not as funny or as exciting as the first movie, or have the plot twists of the first movie (even if they were fairly obvious there). The one main plot twist in this movie is so blatantly obvious from the beginning that there’s no opportunity to even fake surprise. Overall, the plot is rather dull and predictable, relying on a string of jokes to move the film along.
The jokes are simplified from the first movie, so dumbed down that they’re more groaners than anything else. The minions’ role is increased, which is actually good. They were show-stealers in the first movie, and continue to be here. The voice acting is quite good, too, and Steve Carell really tries to sell Gru. But this movie ultimately feels like it was a quick cash-in to try to follow the success of the first movie as quickly as possible.
“Despicable Me 2” earns 2.5 out of 5 stars.
SheldonNylander.com 