Meh: Despicable Me 2 (2013)
Despicable Me 2 (2013) – 5.5 (IMDb 7.5) – Animation, Family, Comedy (USA)
After being positively surprised by the first film, I was somewhat looking forward to a sequel of Despicable Me. Like most people I thought the first film was very original, beautifully animated and pretty funny. And I don’t even like animated or family films. Being a bit pretentious and cynical as a film-goer I think they are mostly silly and childish, which actually makes sense since they’re targeting children. However I can’t really judge the film as a kid, because I’m not a kid anymore. For what it’s worth though, my little sister really enjoyed this film, so I guess the film achieved its goal.
To me Despicable Me 2 felt like a cash-grab. It’s nothing new at this point, the humor is not as good as in the first and Gru’s “love interest” (the redhead) is one of the most annoying characters ever. One of the few enjoyable things are the minions, which remind me of Werner Herzog characters, namely the dwarfs in Even Dwarfs Started Small (Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen). And there’s even a chicken and you know how he just loves chickens. Other than that, there are a lot of film references, but they’re just overdone after a while. The film’s villain is weak, the story is predictable, although it’s hard to dislike that upbeat ending and overall it’s just uneven and badly written.
Still, I can’t really say this film is completely “bad”, because I had a good time watching it with my brother and sister and some delicious homemade popcorn. Recommended for kids and if you liked the first one.
black is white 
I actually preferred this to the first one. But yeah, I’m not totally sure why they have become such huge hits. It says a lot that I only watched it this weekend and already can’t remember the feel good ending you mention!
Hey! We watched the same movie this weekend, how cool is that? 🙂 I think the minions are a big part of why the film was so successful and the characters were very likable in the first one, but here they almost become caricatures of themselves (at least in my opinion). I wonder how that Minions movie will work out, since they can’t really speak. Should be fun, I look forward to it!
Great minds Davide, great minds!
😀
I wasn’t much of a fan of the first, so it only made even more sense that this one didn’t change my mood all that much. However, it had me pleased enough to smile for a short while. Good review David.