Now with added Minion action

Rating: 8/10 (3 July 2013)

If you are regular cinema goer to Odeon Cinemas in the UK you would have bombarded with advertisement for Despicable Me 2, since Christmas. Despite this advertising overload to some viewers, Despicable Me 2 turns out to fun continuous for the series, even if it does occasionally retread some of the same material.
Since the events of the first film Gru (Steve Carell) has given up being a villain and sets out to be good father to Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Elsie Fisher) with the help of his little yellow Minions. But a new villain has emerged by stealing a secret Russian lab with formula which can turn anything into a purple hairy destructive beast. With no leads the Anti-Villain League (AVL) recruits Gru to find the villain who is located in a mall. Yet sparks starts to between Gru and his partner, Agent Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wigg) while someone is kidnapping the Minions.
Despicable Me 2 continues what worked in the first film, the physical and visual humour, the slapstick and the Minions. This film has much more Minion action as they hurt each other, dance or simply enjoying life and this time they play a much bigger part to the story. The Minions are fun creatures and fans of them will be satisfied with their additional screen time. But the Minions are not the only physically comic characters, Despicable Me 2 introduces a new character, the psycho chicken and he is awesome as a guard dog and provides great humour.
Wigg is not a new actress to series, but her character is new. Wigg gave an enthusiastic performance as the eager Agent Wilde, a woman who loves her job. Wigg is known comic actress and she has excellent comedic timing to enhance her lines. Occasionally she does comes off as an embarrassing mom and Wilde is a very Wiggequese character, so people who dislike Wigg will struggle to like her character. But for most people there are plenty of character qualities to make her very likable. Steve Coogan is also a new addition to the series as Silas Ramsbottom (ha, ha, bottom): he is a much more serious, deadpan performance but he still makes an impression and he has some good lines.
Benjamin Bratt was brought in as a last minute replacement for Javier Bardem and Al Pacino as the film's antagonist. For someone who had to work on his role very quickly he brought out a larger then live character as Eduardo the dancing Mexican restaurant owner. He is a much more entertaining character than Vector from the last film.
The original Despicable Me had the visual look of a Saturday Morning Cartoon with better animation. The sequel underplays this element and has more of a Bondesque, The Incredibles look to. The AVL Headquarters more like a Bond villain's lair. The backstory of the villain El Macho, the most manly villain ever, was told in very entertaining flashbacks and his manly death felt very much like the superhero deaths in The Incredibles.
In comparison to the first film, Despicable Me 2 does sometimes meander and looks at subplots, particular Margo falling for a boy and Gru's love life. The flow was not as natural as Despicable Me. At times, Despicable Me 2 plays like a romantic-comedy as well as a sci-fi animated film.
Near the end of Despicable Me 2 repeats some of the same plot points of the first film, even if the make-up is slightly different. It could be argued that this is simply following typical screen writing tropes but it generally takes small step back for a film that actually worked as a continuation to the story. There are also a couple of repeated jokes, but it could easily be seen as a running jokes.
Despicable Me 2 is a delightful family film that will please fans of the original and adults and children alike. It is a film that plenty of humour with different types of jokes during its run time and serves as what a sequel should be, a continuous of a story. The audience I was with absolutely loved it.
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