Despicable Me 2 Film Review

Despicable Me 2 Film Review

Initial Thoughts

            Sorry its taken me so long to review this, but none the less here we go. After getting many requests to do this movie, I am finally getting around to doing it, and when i went in, I was excited, and I mean who wouldn't be? its the sequel to 2010's hit animated comedy Despicable Me. which I have reviewed, and which I thought was pretty, but not perfect, I was initially concerned about the future of Despicable Me due to the slow but surely complete failure of similar franchises such as Shrek, and Ice Age.

            But will this sequel live up to the original? or will it quickly dissipate, such as other films?

Storyline: 18 out of 25

            Now, there are some good and bad things about the story and plot in this film. First off, they did use the aspects of the previous film to help back the story in this film, this can be risky depending if your audience has seen the first film or not, but in this case, I think that wont be a problem. But it is clever and is a much better start than other sequels have had. Plot devices are introduced at a reasonably good pace, and some of them (not all) have some background and are explained to a minimum extent. However as the film progresses some of the issues begin to immerge. Lets start with the clichés, yes this is a family comedy after all, and you can't really have a Family Comedy without clichés. Seeing how this is a film with children (daughters to be exact) you have that classic, learning about men sort of thing, you know a growing up cliché. Yeah there are good things to learn, but it has been done so much, it just gets old after a while, and there are much better movies that teach the same lessons.  

            Another thing that ties in with the story and plot line is the pacing. As while the story progresses, the pacing plays a huge role in how well the story is portrayed. And for the first half, it was pretty good, It matched the pacing that was in the first film, which isn't a bad thing. however as the film got beyond the halfway mark, it went down and down, the film got faster and faster, plot holes began to emerge because of it. And the fact that questionable character lines begin to appear as well certainly doesn't help clear up the questions that begin to pile up during the end of the film.

            (Spoilers!)Why did Ramsbottom become so hostile so quickly? why does he basically fire Gru after one case? why was he invited to the wedding? why was the love between Margo and El Machos son so rushed? all of these and more are never answered.

Characters: 20 out of 25

            Okay, this is one aspect that they didn't do terrible at. In fact it is quite clear that they did some effort to make the characters well developed and interesting. Another bonus is that they didn't totally re-write the characters that continue over from the first film into this one. But instead they simply added to, and changed some personality traits that had been re-arranged at the end of the first film. For example at the end of the first film, it was clear that Gru now cared more about his daughters than he did being evil. Not that he still didn't enjoy being evil, but he has realized that being evil would in turn endanger his kids. This character trait is built upon, and further developed in the 2nd film.

            They didn't introduce to many new characters that it would be confusing for us, and they didn't bring back any non-essential characters from the 1st film. Which leaves room to focus on the major characters from this film. You may not realize this, but this is quite an issue in sequels now a days. The issue is that the will add characters in the sequel and keep all of the characters from the pervious film, then when the next sequel appears, the same thing occurs, rinse and repeat. This tactic can, and always will kill a movie franchise.      

            However they do not do that, for which I am great full.

Comedy: 18 out of 25

            While the film did get a lot of laughs out of me, it wasn't as good as the first film. And I think this has something to do with the fact that there isn't a lot of original ideas in the comedy. I know that it is difficult creating new comedic ideas and Appling them to different situations, and they did try. But Gru's partner is so not funny. she was probably the most irritating character in the film, her personality, comedic possibilities, everything I hated, the reasoning? She was to happy, yup that's it, she was way to friggin' happy. The base line for comedy is that some one has to suffer, either verbally, or physically. But when you have someone just so happy, there aren't a hole lot of comedy you can do with the character, and the reason for this is simply because of the base line of comedy.

Plot: 20 out of 25

            for the most part, many aspects of the film made sense, where well introduced (some where introduced in first film) and helped further the story and or gather laughs from the audience. However there is one specific thing I want to talk about. the villain. Because really, it can get really confusing. The league arrests a totally different guy than who their main suspect was, the shop keeper they arrest is never mentioned by the main antagonist, by the protagonist, and the reasoning for him joining the antagonist is never explained what so ever. Besides that, there is just to many issues with the main antagonist and the way the protagonist's go about capturing him, that it just takes away all creditability.

And so the final verdict for the film Despicable Me 2 is a...

70/100

Decent

Call me harsh, but I do not think that this film was the huge hit that many other audience members and film critics claimed it to be. Yes the story and characters where surprisingly strong, however there where many clichés that wear down at all aspects of the film. But does that make it a bad film? Not at all, don't get me wrong, this is still a really good movie, and you will have a really fun time watching it, but according to me, it is just decent.