Movie Review: Despicable Me 2

-
Movie: Despicable Me 2 (Pierre Coffin, 2013)
Oscar Nominations: Best Animated Feature

So, if you've seen the first Despicable Me movie, you know it's an oddly charming film about a villain who ends up changing his ways due to three little orphan girls. They get a bizarre but well-meaning father, he gets a family that isn't a side effect of trying to steal bigger and better things, and everyone lives happily ever after, more or less. Also, there are small yellow pill-shaped minions with whom he has a surprisingly healthy employer/benevolent dictator relationship. He knows them all by name, gives them reasonable work benefits, and if they're all a bit silly -- well, Gru is too. The minions are an inspired creation, by the way, and while Steve Carell's voicework and the story itself is sweet and cute and smart enough to be worthwhile, the minions and the small touches they add are really the best and most memorable parts of the film.

Despicable Me 2 picks up not all that long after the first movie left off, with just enough time for Gru and his adopted daughters to settle into their lives together. Gru gets recruited by a heroic organization to help track down a horrible chemical that transforms living beings into ravenous monsters. He's assigned an overeager young agent named Lucy as a partner (who's both useful and annoying) and -- well, let's just say that love and family win in the end.

Just like in the first movie, the visuals are awesome. The running joke of the minions might have fallen flat in a second movie, but the director (who also voices the minions) keeps it going without making the mistake of focusing solely on them and ignoring the rest of the film. I could wish that the movie didn't end up damseling Lucy by the end, but she's not the only one, so I suppose that's acceptable. The little girls are sweet, the ongoing fascination in these films with fabric textures is impressive (seriously, the knitted garments are everywhere and they're amazing), and it's funny without being cloying or dumb. It's not the best kids' movie ever, but it's far from the worst. I don't know that I'd pick it for best animated feature, but I'd be secretly kind of pleased if the little yellow guys walked away with an Oscar. Definitely worth seeing, though, no matter what.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Character Creation: Blue Rose

-
Image
Character Creation! Okay, so since we're on break, it's time to make a character, and thus Matt and Al and I will engage in creating one for a game that is long overdue: Blue Rose . Currently out of print (to my knowledge) Blue Rose was one of the first overtly inclusive RPGs, inspired by the fantasy romance properties of Mercedes Lackey, among others, where "fantasy romance" really means "fantasy that isn't primarily a heterosexual male fantasy," because really it's all fantasy no matter what. Still, the focus is on community and groups, inclusion instead of exclusion, and on that score "romantic fantasy" is the moniker the game itself chooses. Blue Rose is a True20 game, so some of this is going to be super familiar system-wise. The setting is the kingdom of Aldis, which has entered an era of peace after the Shadow Wars of the Sorceror Kings. Nearby kingdoms still struggle under the Shadow, but the heroes of Aldis strive to defen...
Read more

Five months later....

-
Image
Here, it's a picture of a cute pig from the Internet. Enjoy. So, Dear Reader, the last we saw of each other was when I got that amazing survey back and could not figure out what the heck I was going to do with it. (I am much closer to doing something with it, btw, but that'll take another few months.) I had every intent of posting again, and soon, but then... well, my dissertation ramped up and ate my life. I've been making good progress, but I'm on something of a deadline at the moment, so I'm forced to ignore pretty much everything that isn't it, including this blog. I still love you all, though. Truly. Would Little Piglet lie to you? No, it would not. Oink. In life updates though, in the past five months: Both my sons are graduating high school I've finished drafts of three and a half chapters I've been a guest at a convention (Breakout Con in Toronto, ON!) I've been elected president of a game developers trade organization (IDGN!) I...
Read more

#RPGaDay2015

-
Image
It's time for #RPGaDay2015 again! I'm a little behind, so I'll start catching up today and finish catching up tomorrow.  Day 1: Forthcoming Game You're Most Looking Forward To I think I'd have to say, based on the con I was just at, that the game I'm most looking forward to is Bluebeard's Bride , by Whitney Beltran, Sarah Richardson, and Marissa Kelly, coming from Magpie Games. I got to play a game of it on Saturday night (thanks Sarah!) and it was fantastic. There's some really, really, really good work going on there, and I'm excited to see it fleshed out and on paper.  Day 2: Kickstarted Game You're Most Pleased You Backed Again, since it was here today, I'd have to say Feng Shui 2 from Atlas Games. Cam and company did a heck of a job on this game -- it's fun, it plays well, and it's all the stuff I loved about Feng Shui with none of the stuff I hated. And it came in the mail today! I'm looking forward to play...
Read more