Not as mature or as competent, even, as the first, but still just as passive and so just as adequate.

Rating: 5/10 (3 May 2018)

Again, 'Despicable Me 2 (2013)' is a very passive experience that fails to engage on almost any level. This time, though, there's this odd, almost meta-textual edge which has the feature fully embrace its animated format to the point where characters will just break-out into dance, or even song at some points, while strangely leering at the camera. The plasticity has also been at least doubled so that people will flail about all over the shop and take ludicrous amounts of bodily-harm without so much as a scratch. All this adds up to this bizarre combination that makes it feel much more like a self-aware cartoon than a proper computer-generated film. What doesn't help its credibility either, is that the central character's arc has been entirely excised and almost all development gutted from the feature, leading to a series of skits featuring nothing but caricatures in slap-stick situations desperate to make small children chuckle. The movie skews very young throughout, with only one or two jokes that made me laugh, and yet it still passes the time as adequately as the first even though it isn't as competent in terms of its story. Its a different beast, one that isn't as mature or even quite as competent, but it is still just as decent because it is almost exactly as passive an experience. 5/10