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