Despicable Me 2 Review

Gru's turn good goes bad.

Full, spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman

If 2010’s Despicable Me was Illumination Entertainment’s way of proving their ability to produce quality animated content on par with industry heavyweights Pixar and Dreamworks, then this year’s Despicable Me 2 is proof that the 2010 surprise hit was a fluke. Illumination’s spotty track record since the first Despicable consists of misfires Hop and The Lorax, which should have warned us of the potential disappointment this sequel would bring. Alas, Despicable Me 2 has arrived, and with it Illumination gives us a perfect demonstration of how difficult it is to make lightning strike twice.

As would be expected, Gru takes center stage, voiced by Steve Carell in another impressively dedicated performance in his faux-unidentifiable-accent. The entire supporting voice cast is strong, bolstered by the likes of Kristen Wiig and Russell Brand. This time around, Gru’s three adopted daughters, Margo, Edith and Agnes, are almost entirely relegated to uninteresting background roles, and only the ever-adorable Agnes makes any sort of impression over the course of the film. Instead of choosing to have Gru attempt to balance his nefarious hobbies with raising three little girls take center stage, Illumination makes a 180 and turns Gru into a good guy. The ex-villain is hired by the Anti Villain League to track down the mysterious culprit behind a high-profile robbery and shut down his plans once and for all.

The best part of Despicable Me 2

Unfortunately, as it turns out, Gru isn’t nearly as fun to watch when he’s playing the good guy as he was when he was the villain. As a result, the central narrative of Despicable Me 2 winds up being fairly dull, feeling more like a side-story stretched to a feature length than a true sequel. It’s odd that Illumination wasn’t able to keep the plot interesting, because Me 2’s pace is one of the most breakneck in recent memory. The film is constantly pushing forward, taking very few stops along the way as it ushers the audience from conflict to conflict in hopes of keeping viewers engaged and oblivious to the shaky backbone behind the charade. This facade leads to a level of sensory overload that can be overbearing, even in an era where children’s entertainment is full of nonstop action and pop-culture references.

And to make matters worse, Despicable Me 2 succumbs to a mountain of kids-movie cliches that its predecessor avoided, from incessant pop tunes permeating nearly every scene to pointless, over-exaggerated romantic interests and a cast of characters that’s comprised almost entirely of blunt caricatures (with the chief offender being the film’s main antagonist), save for a few returning faces from the first film.

Of course, when I say “a few returning faces,” I’m referring in part to the nearly-identical faces of Gru’s countless Minions, whom the characters are amusingly able to tell apart and address by name. Since the release of the first Despicable Me, the Minions have become a sort of pop-culture phenomenon, gracing cereal boxes and promotional pamphlets for countless companies. Illumination has given the Minions a much larger spotlight this time around, and a more central role in the narrative even than Gru’s daughters. As it turns out, the Minions are one of Despicable Me 2’s bright spots, proving that, despite becoming heavily commercialized, they can still deliver hilarious physical humor and some genuine sweetness alongside.

Gru's signature Freeze Ray gets precious little screen-time in this sequel.

The Minions stand in stark contrast to some of Despicable Me 2’s most bizarrely-mature moments. Families have been used to surprisingly graphic cartoon violence since the days of Loony Toons, but some of Me 2’s darker moments showcase a level of violence that’s rare in childrens’ entertainment. A few especially strange instances highlighting alcohol also pop up, ensuring that Me 2 stands on the absolute edge of its PG-rating.

Perhaps these more mature moments are slapdash attempts to appeal to a wider audience, but they’re in poor taste and not at all well thought out -- which sums up the whole of Despicable Me 2 quite well. Illumination seems to have simply run out of ideas at some point along in production, and the failure shines through during the large majority of the film. Characters are brought together and separated in outrageous, unbelievable ways, to the point where it becomes distracting.

This issue -- along with a multitude of others -- inhibit upon Despicable Me 2’s ability to maintain a cohesive narrative thread and naturally interactive characters within it. As a result, the final product proves to be a schizophrenic jumble of partially-fleshed-out-ideas, idiosyncratic tones, and disappointing cliches. It’s a shame, because the original Despicable Me showed so much potential. Audiences are better left staying away and waiting out for Despicable Three -- though I’m no longer convinced that Illumination is capable of delivering anything above the caliber of this subpar outing.