Despicable Me 2

I was pretty excited about Despicable Me 2 given that the first movie had been among my animated favourites after, of course, films like The Lion King, Toy Story and How to Train Your Dragon. Funnily enough at the time of release I was more excited to watch another animated story centered on the villain – Megamind. Whilst good it was clear I had been wrong. Fine, admitted.

Despicable Me had a well thought-out and original (as much as can be these days) story line with strong characters throughout and enough minions to keep children and grownups happy without being annoying. The film used 3D well as modern animated films in my eyes should do, particularly when experimenting with the minions after the end of the film vying for length of reach into the audience. It was as engaging as it was funny, clever and interesting.

When I went to view DM2 I was starving. What made this much worse was that I went at 12.30pm on a Saturday. This meant children... What do children like more than films? Snacks. My mistake not to buy outrageously-priced dogs/popcorn/nachos beforehand was confirmed when it seemed every child sat in a 360 degree radius of myself had nachos. This was further compounded when Gru opened a bloody cake shop (only for Lucy Wild to destroy all of them), then discover a secret salsa recipe and finally to wear a delicious nacho hat complete with guacamole. I have never had to use so much self control to discourage myself from jumping out of the seat and completing a mid-movie snack purchase. Surely only the habit of an odd guy who isn’t into movies that much? So I did not.

The problem is, my fixation with my stomach showed that the film wasn’t pulling me in. I didn’t care so much about Gru finding El Macho at the party, more about whether his guacamole was going brown as it had been a while since he’d dipped.

I found the plot extremely linear in comparison to the first movie, very close to predictable and whilst I understand that this is a kid’s film and I don’t expect a Sherlock-esq twist, I would like some level of originality. Example: It looks like Gru will fall in love. He does, he even gets married. It looks like El Macho is the bad guy. He is. Margo’s boyfriend will dump her eventually. Not until after Gru embarrasses himself. Yes both happen.

This all being said, I did think the chemistry and the voice acting from Steve Carrell and Kristen Wiig worked very well and brought realness to the on-screen romance between two socially unconventional characters. The minions again provided good light entertainment throughout, although compared to the first movie their screen presence seems to have veered more towards quantity rather than quality in so much as the laugh per minute from the yellow/purple anomalies was down by my count.

Agnes was still very cute. Obviously she was going to be the star in this department even though they attempted to develop Margo’s character too. Five points if you can name the other 'leetel' girl without googling it.

Overall this film had a tough act to follow in the original. I thought it did well enough as a sequel but don’t think it could stand alone as a success in its own right. I would still welcome a Despicable Me 3 and would happily watch the characters follow another storyline but I feel they had such a good base they could have achieved a little more with DM2 than serving the audience basically just more of everything they enjoyed from the first movie (minions, Gru’s voice/shape and Agnes).

Verdict – 7.0/10

Man of Steel

This blog will be reviewing movies. First one I’m going to do is Man of Steel as I watched it on Wednesday. I’ll tell you what I think, you can agree or disagree, I’m not an expert but I do have some opinions which I’ll attempt to write in an amusing and coherent manner....

The most interesting thing I thought I knew prior to watching this movie was the Kryptonite was invented mainly as a means for the, then radio, actor Bud Collyer to take time off as Superman was presumably ill due to all that bad green stuff. Now I know that an “S” isn’t in fact an “S”. Instead it stands for hope. Possibly this is a bit corny. I really hoped when going to see the movie that Russell Crowe wouldn’t be doing an accent, however I was assured that what he used in Man of Steel was meant to be an English one. So to me, an “S” remains an “S”.

You could tell for parts of the movie that Goyer and Snyder were really trying to sell Superman, sorry Man of Steel, as a new entity. The much elaborated back story of his own planet and some resolution of some of the daddy issues that had been much too prevalent in the preceding Superman films gave this movie a more updated feel. Superman still doesn’t like to talk though. For this reason it was hard to effectively analyse Henry (Henners from now on) Cavells acting properly, for the five lines he spoke, he did well. The skulls part was interesting and, I thought, a good depiction to people watching that General Zod was the bad guy and if anyone had any doubt at this point, planned to kill humans. Henners looked pretty sad when drowning in these skulls, even though he knew this wasn’t reality and presumably couldn’t feel guilty about an event possibly happening sometime in the future. Just saying, anger might have been a better emotion to choose, you know like when you let your dad die in a hurricane Henners.

Two more problems, I’ll cover them briefly. First, the writers meeting went like this – We want Henners and his mum to live, but his dad to die, how do we do this with meaning? Have him saving the dog from a car in a hurricane? Yeah possibly, but wouldn’t Henners save him? Nah, we’ll write that bit after lunch, maybe his dad will just look determined and Henners will understand?

Second (two sub sections). Very smart civilisation, why did they stop exploring? Sure, rest on your laurels and enjoy your cavernous expanse of a burnt out planet, but surely someone was suggesting pissing about on flying dragon creatures and making babies underwater wasn't all they should be doing? Also, did no-one there think for a second maybe we should cover everyone is random black goo and transport up off the planet really fast in unfortunately-shaped capsules? Nah, probably just do that for the prisoners. Make sure the ship they are on has the resources for them to be able to convert it into a multi-purpose vehicle for space exploration though...

There are a few more but those were my main concerns. In case you are thinking right now, this review isn't going well, I did actually quite like the movie. Here’s why.

Henners was very hench, always nice to see a hench superman (looking at you Dean Cain). Appropriate. I felt a lot of the updates worked, Louis Lane was less annoying than in previous movies and Fishburne made a good Perry White, although a bit of cursing wouldn't have gone astray. As a side note in case of alien attack I will not wait for my boss to tell me to leave the building. Sorry boss, but I will be gone. The Henners relationship with his parents gave more connection to the character and I enjoyed his early days in Smallville and his struggles to control and not to unleash his powers. The actions scenes didn't grossly take over the film and fight scenes were appropriately large-scale.

Highlights – Henners bod. Special effects (except when he leaps across the burning oil rig). Family values. Camera angles. Russell Crowes beard.

Low-lights – Story line in parts. Russell Crowes accent.

Verdict – 6.5/10