The Anti-Villain League needs a better mission plan, but there’s still more than enough family charm and minions to keep “Despicable Me 2″ firmly afloat.
The whole gang is back – and then some. Gru’s (Steve Carell) living the dream, playing happy homemaker and loving dad to Agnes, Edith, and Margo, (Elsie Fisher, Dana Gaier, Miranda Cosgrove) until someone zaps him with a taser (or, more precisely, a lipstick taser), snatches him right off his front lawn and stuffs him in a car trunk. When he’s released, Gru comes face-to-face with his abductor, Lucy (Kristen Wiig), and learns that he’s been taken to the Anti-Villain League (AVL) headquarters. AVL head honcho, Silas Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan), explains that someone made off with an entire top-secret lab. They’ve got a short list of suspects, but the problem is, they can’t pinpoint the villain so having been a villain himself, they recruit Gru to get the job done.
It’s easy to jump right back into this world courtesy of an opening sequence that appropriately highlights the film’s prime assets – Gru’s relationship with his girls and those crazy little minions. In mere minutes you’ve laughed out loud because the minions’ giggles are infectious and have gotten that warm and fuzzy feeling when Agnes admits she knows her birthday fairy princess’ secret identity, making this an ideal and very necessary jumping off point for a film loaded with unforgettable moments, but also with an underdeveloped through-line.
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Who hasn’t woken up with a hangover and said you’re never drinking again only to hit the bar a few days later? That’s fine for us, but Todd Phillips better keep his word. “The Hangover Part III” absolutely must be the end.
It’s a moderately funny, largely deplorable narrative with entirely unlikable leads, but thanks to “Pain & Gain’s” true roots, it gets away with it.
I love chocolate cake. When I eat too much chocolate cake, I feel sick and don’t love it much anymore. I like visually stimulating imagery in movies. When I see too much visually stimulating imagery, in 3D nonetheless, I feel sick and don’t love it much anymore. Hopefully Michael Bay doesn’t love chocolate cake as much as he loves tracking shots and dizzying robot battles or he’d have a morbidly obese problem on his hands.
The second the trailer hit, we knew The Hangover Part II was basically The Hangover, but in Thailand. While simply recycling a storyline is generally a cause for concern, that’s really the point of this film, otherwise we’d be getting some sort of odd spinoff or no sequel at all. The Hangover Part II could have failed on just about every cinematic front as long as the boys experienced a drug-induced night of debauchery followed by a hilarious attempt at recovery. Unfortunately, just like the memory of the wolf pack’s big night out in Thailand, funny jokes seemed to have simply slipped the filmmakers’ minds.