Movie Review: Despicable Me 2 (2013)

So the anticipation is nearly over. With numerous teasers released from a long, long, long time ago, featuring the cute yellow minions, and then eventual funny trailers, the second installment of the hit animation movie featuring Gru, his minions and his adopted kids is coming to a theater near you on 4 July 2013 (3 July in USA). The build up has been strategically planned. The interviews. The advertising. The soft toys. The minions. The banana. All the works to make you, your kids, or your nephew-nieces, run to the box office to buy tickets for this animation feature and maybe the toys after.

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So is Despicable Me 2 and the return of adorable minions worth your hard earned cash and your precious time?

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Never announce your weapon before you use it!

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Taking a break from all the silliness

It is quite obvious that the adorable, childish and unpredictable yellow minions are one of the key winning factors of Despicable Me, and maybe cute little Agnes (Elsie Kate Fisher) as well. In this second installment we are treated to whole lot more of yellow beans and their silly antics thereby giving their fans a lot more reason to watch the show. With the minions being so incorrigibly funny with their mindless antics, humor from the rest of the ‘human characters’ seemed a lot more brief. Maybe I was just expecting too much.

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Introducing Secret Agent Lucie Wilde (Kristen Wiig)

In the first movie, we learnt that being good and doing good provides more happiness than being evil. In this second one, it is all about discovering love, giving love a chance to grow, and the need for Gru (Steve Carell) to allow his adopted kids to grow up. Of course, there is still evil to fight and evil is El Macho (Benjamin Bratt) a Mexican wrestling villain that is simply very macho when he creates crime – as how Gru puts it.

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I’m not sure why El Macho rides a shark instead of a bull but it does make him more macho

The rhythm of narration felt like a sputtering car with more screen time offered to the minions. The ‘laugh out loud’ mindless moments with the idiotic minions, were intersperse with the more dramatic scenes between the human characters. Despicable Me 2 is like a rough cut diamond compared to the beautifully polished first feature. What it lacked, I felt, was the tenderness and finesse which exuded more warmth & viewing pleasure, as with the first. The writers probably tried to put too many ideas into the show and the director failed to gel it all together well. It felt a little uncomfortable to watch at times, and a disjointed scene towards the end did annoy me.

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Are you ready to rock?

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Intrinsically, Despicable Me 2 is just another wholesome family movie

So besides the incoherent scenes, Despicable Me 2 is still wholesome family fun spreading positive messages of love, care, forgiveness and having a sense of humor. Kids not caring about the narrative will love the slapstick parts and parents will be happy to find their kids pre-occupied for 90 over minutes. Overly observant and critical viewers like me will just need to switch off the analyses for the same duration.

 

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