After church today, the four of us had a quick lunch at home, then went to meet up with some friends to see Despicable Me 2. In case you aren’t aware, this is the sequel to the original film, which I only watched recently. The original was a pretty entertaining film, so I hoped this one would be equally as good. An equally good sequel, compared to the source material? Um, not likely, but one has to hope for the best. The film brings back Steve Carell as Gru, Russell Brand as D. Nefario, and the actresses playing the girls. New to the film were Kristen Wiig as Lucy, Gru’s potential love interest (come on, don’t cry spoilers, because really, you didn’t see that coming?), Benjamin Bratt, Ken Jeong, Steve Coogan, Nasim Pedrad, and Kristen Schaal.
The premise of the film is that while Gru, the ex-supervillain, is out of the super villain game, a secret Arctic laboratory is stolen in a grandiose fashion. The Anti-Villain League recruits Gru in the investigation, which primarily occurs at a local mall. Gru and Lucy (Kristen Wiig’s character) go undercover at the local mall to discover which of the proprietors may in fact be a super-villain. Meanwhile, one of the girls starts to get interested boys, Dr. Nefario misses the life of super-villainy, Gru doesn’t have a love interest, and the minions are quietly being kidnapped.
Not a bad film. The first half of the film felt very reminiscent (too reminiscent?) of the original film, almost as if it was a continuation or a copy. Maybe that sounds fine to people, but it seemed almost derivative at the beginning. I didn’t quite laugh much for the first half of the film. The 2nd half felt more different, and the jokes and sight gags were better. I noted a number of sight gags that were homages to prior works and films. So, to summarize, not a bad film. The first half felt derivative, but the 2nd half picked it up.
Despicable Me 2 (2013)