Comments on: ‘Despicable Me 2’: A Riotous, ‘Looney Toons’-style Comedy Worth Seeing

By: Gideon

Gideon — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 05:40:00 +0000

There is no doubt that kids will love this movie, and ‘Despicable Me 2’ does a great job of catering to their need for random hilarity, aided by a simple plot. For people over the age of 12, however, I think it will all prove a little too simple. To me, it almost seemed like an extended TV show – there was little to no complexity in finding the villain or foiling them, and ventures, such as the undercover cupcake shop, were abandoned without a glance back. I liked the little snippets we saw of the mechanics of Gru’s new family life, but there wasn’t enough of it, and hardly any evolution from the first film (luckily we did have Margo growing up a bit). Lucy, again, I liked, but there wasn’t much setting her apart – she just seemed to be in the right place at the right time. A bit of interaction between her and the girls would definitely not have gone astray.

While I’m not crazy about the (human) character designs, I cannot fault the candy-coloured world they live in, and would be interested to see how a setting such as this would be lit and function under more dramatic circumstances. Overall, I think this franchise will really shine when Illumination stop’s pretending that it isn’t about the minions!

By: May Alice Page

May Alice Page — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 02:09:00 +0000

To be fair, what they did in the credits was hardly any different from what they did in the credits in the first movie.

By: Esther

Esther — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 14:25:00 +0000

What a great review! I enjoyed the first “Despicable Me” and the second one sounds like a good source of giggles. I’ve listened to the podcasts where the Rotoscopers talk about sequels and what works, what doesn’t. I think the success of a sequel is doing something different than the original. It can build on canon material but has to up the stakes with a new story (too many sequels are a re-hash of the first one), new characters, and surprises from classic characters.

The Loony Tunes/slapstick humor sounds a lot like “Mad Mad Mad Mad World” or “The Great Race” where the writers don’t hold back from putting in as many laughs as possible. The Anti-Villain League sounds like a James Bond-esq/MI6 team. Looking forward to seeing “DM 2” this summer.