Movie Review – Despicable Me 2

 The Gru-Ray player makes another appearance.

When Despicable Me made gazillions of dollars at the box office, there was little doubt that a sequel would inevitably find its way to our screens; continued adventures of Gru and his cute yellow Minions were as sure a thing as you could get, and here we now sit, reviewing Despicable Me 2, the obviously titled follow-up film. The story of a Bad Guy gone good – a villain, Gru, finding his leaf being not only turned, but well and truly twisted – made for interesting viewing in the original film, with the juxtanposition between Gru’s inherent “evilness” and his gradually enlarging (Grinch-like) heart working well with the wry humor and splendid animation and action sequences. I’d love to proclaim that Despicable Me 2 is just as good as the original, or better even, but it many ways it is not. In neutering Gru’s evil side at the end of the original film, the film-makers have had nowhere to go with the second, making the “Despicable” nomenclature somewhat redundant. That said, Despicable 2 is still an enjoyable watch, even if you get the sense that something intangible is missing…..

Gru (Steve Carrell) is happily (?) settled with his adopted daughters Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Elsie Fisher), having set up a business enterprise making jams for retail. Gru’s evil sidekick, Doctor Nefaio, leaves after being offered another career opportunity. After a highly secret mutagen is stolen from a hidden laboratory in the Arctic, Gru is summoned to the headquarters of the Anti-Villain League by Silas Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan), and tasked with locating said mutagen, which has been hidden within a local shopping mall. His partner in this mission is one Lucy Wilde (Kirsten Wiig), whom he initially hates but eventually grows to like. They track the mutagen to a Mexican restaurant owned by Eduardo Perez (Benjamin Bratt), who, it turns out, is one-time Super Villain El Macho. With a plan t use Gru’s Minion’s to dominate the world, El Macho must be stopped, and apparently the only person able to do that is Gru himself. But will his love for Lucy and his inability to communicate his feelings leave our hero powerless to stop El Macho?

As far as crowd pleasing, franchise-building cinematic events go, they don’t come more family-friendly than Despicable Me. The Bad Guy Gone Good story is a difficult one to do well, and in the original film the balance between Gru being a complete bastard and a somewhat acceptably nice guy was handled really nicely. Despicable Me 2 attempts to follow on from that story by having Gru, now a settled-down-father-of-three-yet-still-a-supervillain-type character, find himself a girlfriend. This apparent romantic interest comes from (typically) the most unlikely place, the ranks of the AVL, in Lucy Wilde. Gru’s girls, of course, think that they’ll find “a mother” if Gru hooks up with a woman, and Despicable Me 2 skirts potential emotional angst by just going with that idea instead of dredging up possible scenarios in which Gru lives the rest of his life desperate and alone; Despicable Me 2 finds that nice balance of character and story once again, belying the lack of sharp sarcastic wit in favor a more generic, sweet-as-pie outlook that contrasts greatly with the original films’ aesthetic.

There’s nothing wrong with what Despicable Me 2 delivers, at least at a very basic animated-film level. The characters are all fun to watch, the scripting is largely excellent (if somewhat formulaic) and the animation is true-to-form spectacular. The voice cast all do terrific jobs with their roles, be they large or small, and the overriding sense of the film is one of light-weight, fluffy fun. There’s nothing terribly serious here, no heart-breaking sorrow or melancholy (something the previous film had in decent quantity) and even the main Bad Guy Plot is forgettably inane; yet it all feels like a good time is being had, and in this regard you’d have to qualify Despicable 2 as a success. Where the film does flounder is in Gru’s lack of villainy. The guy has spent his entire life being bad, nasty and villainous, and now that he’s a father, he’s settled down into a life of boring hum-drummery. Poor Doctor Nefario even goes off and finds another job, he’s that bored with having nothing evil to do.

Where the first film had that humorous undercurrent of mean about it, with regards to Gru’s lack of empathy or heart, here this subtext has been washed over completely. Gru’s just another dad who used to be Bad, who still isn’t. That’s it. His Minions spend time baking and cooking jams and jellies for sale, a nice little business enterprise as far away from stealing the moon as you can get. Without Gru’s inherent villainy, the potential for him to be bad, Despicable 2 loses a lot of precious momentum and impact. It’s not that the film is worse for the lack, it just doesn’t quite have the same delicious flavor of edge. It just feels more…. generic. Which is a pity.

Despicable Me 2 delivers all the entertainment promised by the first installment, and in some ways actually surpasses it (the finale involving some roided-up Minions is particularly cool, as is the entire El Macho subplot) but the lack of Gru’s mischievous antics this time around leaves things all feeling just a little more same-same than they could have been. The cast are all excellent, the animation is stunning, and it’s always good to see the Minions doing their thing (I don’t find them quite as giggle-worthy as a lot of people, for some reason) – Despicable Me 2 does its job well, raises no fuss, and asks little of the audience. Competent, but not entirely memorable.

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Who wrote this?

Rodney Twelftree

“Some people say I like films. Those people are wrong. I *love* films.” – Me. I said this.

Rodney has been writing about films for well over two decades, appreciates a good wine, the love of his wife and kids, and the affection of his dog and cats. He has a fondness of cheesy 90’s action and classic Hollywood, hates that physical media is disappearing, and wishes somebody would make a high-budget series of The Neverending Story.

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