Despicable Me 2

RATING: B-

Despicable Me was quite the unexpected success from a rather unknown animation company. But it worked because for the most part, they put all the right ingredients in. It was hilarious and it had heart to it. What wasn't to like? 

One probably wondered beforehand where they could go from there in a sequel. At the end of the last movie, Gru had cast aside the "evil" mantle, and had devoted himself to being a good father instead. But because the first movie made lots of money, that means they had to come up with something. What do they come up with? 

Well, let's see. They introduce the Anti-Villain League, a league dedicated to preventing villains like Gru from exacting their evil plans. (Considering their absence in the first movie, I'd say they're doing a terrible job of it thus far.) And the AVL picks up Gru to help them foil one of these villains--who stole some purple serum from an arctic lab--and his ultimate plan turns out to be to create purple demon Minions. No, seriously. That's actually his plan. And to what end? Umm... just the generic "take over the world" type deal. Also, there's the villain himself. They sort of try to fool us into thinking he's a red herring... but it never works. The whole thing's quite predictable. 

So yes, the plot took a little bit of a backseat in the sequel. Thankfully, the humor (in general) didn't. Steve Carell still does his voice role as Gru very well, and while there a couple of rather dumb scenes involving the Minions here, they're still quite hilarious for the most part. Heck, even the purple Minions--dumb as the plan involving them is--are still pretty funny. Elsewhere, the introduction of AVL Agent Lucy Wilde is nice as well. The climax itself is pretty suitably exciting. 

Here's the deal with this movie, though. After a pretty great start during the first third of the film or so, things actually kind of slow down to a near crawl for a bit--where a bunch of loosely tied sequences are thrown together to extend the movie's length. Most of which are not so good--such as the ridiculous date Gru is set up on at one point, or the "Happy" song montage. Granted, there's a couple breaks in this slower part of the movie--such as the fire alarm scene--and it does kick back up again later--but this is quite an unexpected turn for a sequel to a movie that never slowed down for a second. 

Despicable Me 2 isn't a bad sequel, and it's still a pretty funny movie. But it lacks that key ingredient of a feel-good storyline/ending that helped set the first movie apart from its peers. And that slow middle of the film seriously does hurt it. Of course, few were probably expecting the film to live up to its predecessor anyway, so it's not too shocking. Ultimately, it's mostly just fun comedy, a return to the characters you liked the first time around, and not a whole lot else.