Movie Review - Despicable Me 2

 Despicable Me 2   $$$ 1/2    

 

 

PG

98 Minutes

Starring: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Benjamin Bratt, and Russell Brand.

Director: Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud.

 

            While on vacation, I had the opportunity to watch this film with my family and all of us enjoyed it greatly. As far as sequels go, I felt that this one surpassed the original.

            With his villainous days behind him, Gru (Steve Carell) is adapting to a normal life with his three adopted daughters. This turns out to be more of a challenge than concocting evil plots to take over the world. The worst of this new batch of life hurdles is the prospect of dating. (In fact, it gives me chills just thinking about it.)

            Things get even more complicated when the Anti-Villain League decides to recruit Gru to deal with the latest threat to the world. He is asked to run a bakery in the mall in order to discover which of the other business is actually a front for an evil laboratory that has developed a substance that transforms its subjects into monsters. And he is assigned rookie agent Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig) to help him.

            The plot is on the simple side of the scale, but in this case that is an advantage because the real attraction of this film is in the antics of the minions and the interaction between Gru and his girls and between Gru and Agent Wilde. The scenes with Gru and his adopted daughters are cute and endearing. I loved them. However, if cute and adorable are bad words in your movie viewing dictionary then you should avoid this film.

            Minions. What needs to be said about them? They are stupid. They are predictable. But most of all they are hilarious. They kept me laughing all through the movie. If you liked them in the first movie I suspect that you’ll love them here. Who knows, maybe the next sequel will be about them.

            The writing is witty. The voice talent is excellent. The story is sufficient to string together all of the endearing moments together and attach them to all the funny bits in a satisfying way. I think the movie would be just as enjoyable if watched at home, but my recommendation is to check it out as discount showing and then pick it up for home viewing when it becomes available. And for that I give it a rating of three-and-a-half Movie Bucks.

 

                        Randy’s Rating System 

$$$$   = Full Price    See this movie right away and pay full price, it’s worth it.

$$$     = Matinee      Catch this as a matinee or other discounted showing.

$$        = Discount     Wait until this movie reaches a discount theater near you.

$          = Rental         Wait until this movie reaches your local video rental outlet.

0          = No Sale       Don’t see this movie at any price.