Like just about everyone else who powered the 2010 animated film Despicable Me to a worldwide gross of over half a billion dollars, I was a huge fan of the film and more than ready to shell out cash for Illumination Studios' highly-anticipated sequel, Despicable Me 2, which did not disappoint, or at least not too much.
Steve Carell's now-ex-villain Gru is back with his three adopted little girls Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Elsie Fisher), his mad scientist colleague Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand) and his tens of thousands of hilarious little yellow minions (Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, speaking their patented multilingual gibberish). In this film, Gru is approached by a super spy organization called the Anti-Villain League in order to help track down a mystery villain who has stolen a powerful mutagen that can turn even the most harmless animals into murderous, indestructible monsters. The AVL boss, Silas Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan) assigns Gru to stake out a mall where the villain might be hiding, and pairs him up with AVL agent Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig). At the mall Gru runs into Mexican restaurant owner and proprietor Eduardo Perez (Benjamin Bratt), whom he believes is a former supervillain named El Macho who supposedly died several years before. Much to Gru's dismay, Margo then finds herself infatuated with Antonio, Eduardo's flirtatious tweener son. Worse still, a mysterious villian starts abducting Gru's beloved minions in droves. Time is clearly running out for everyone's favorite ex-villain.
Sequels to animated films, with the exception of the Toy Story films, usually tend to decline in storytelling quality relative to their predecessors, especially when the original film carries a unique premise. The first Despicable Me, for example, stood out because of the very interesting notion of having a villain adopt three little girls to further an evil scheme, only to fall in love with them later on. It even had to compete with a similar "what-if-villains-had-feelings" film, Megamind, and came out on top. Of course, with Gru's adoptive daughters now having domesticated the former bad guy, the original storytelling conceit had to give way to the question of how he would adjust to civilian life, and how the writers can introduce a woman into his life.
While I definitely enjoyed the first film more than I did this one, I'd like to credit the filmmakers with maintaining many of the elements behind the success of the first film. Even though he's already been a dad for awhile, Gru is still wonderfully awkward and Steve Carell, still sporting his faux-Eastern European accent, is still a lot of fun to watch. By introducing new elements to his character, such as a romantic interest and, at the same time, the stress of having a budding adolescent daughter (Margo) taking an interest in boys, the filmmakers are able to keep things fresh. Of course, the three orphans in the film are just as cute as they were last time, and the scene-stealing Agnes has a little bit of a subplot involving her desire for a mother. Agent Wilde is a fun character, but surprisingly bland, especially given actress Kristen Wiig's comedic resume. In terms of zaniness, she could have easily gone toe-to-toe with Carell's Gru, and a slightly wacky accent couldn't have hurt, at least in my opinion. The new potential bad guy, Eduardo Perez, is a significant stylistic departure from the first film's nerdy villain, Vector, and there's something to be said about the new approach. Part of me regrets that the filmmakers discarded the recording of Oscar winner Al Pacino, who originally did the voice-acting for the character, but Benjamin Bratt, who had previously lent his voice to a character in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, was, to my mind a suitable replacement.
The visual design of the characters and locales, old and new, retained a lot of the flavor of the first film, which was basically a mix of the illustrations of the late artist Edward Gorey and some bright pastel colors, therefore much of its charm as well.
I would, of course, be remiss if I failed to mention the real stars of this movie, the characters who have already become the official mascots of Illumination Studios: Gru's minions. Even more than in the first film, the gibberish-jabbering, clumsy, and consistently hilarious little henchmen basically steal the film right out from under Gru's beak-like nose. They are even more prominent here than in the last film as they are actually now an integral part of the plot rather than just a constant source of laughs (though they are still that). As in the previous film, directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud lend their voices to these little critters, who are basically just vitamin pills with eyes, arms, legs, goggles and overalls, and to me it really is amazing how iconic these little creatures have become.
Unlike the last animated film I reviewed, Monsters University, DM2 is not about subtext or messages for adults but really is just about laughs, and this movie delivers plenty of them. While this is still basically a movie for the young and young at heart, I will go so far as to say that this a movie the whole family can enjoy.
4/5
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