Despicable Me 2 review

Cute family fun. What more could you want?

Having not seen the first Despicable Me, I had no idea what to expect when I wound up checking out the sequel. All I wanted was a funny, charming animated film, and the movie delivered. It is funny, charming, and very nicely animated-no more, no less. I thoroughly enjoyed the film.

Now, here it might be better to begin with the film's shortcomings. Despicable Me 2 falls a little on the formulaic side. It isn't the most creative film out there, and a lot of it is fairly predictable. Little in this movie is particularly surprising. In addition, there's an over-reliance on slapstick comedy. Not that the slapstick is bad at all, but more than half of the film's humour comes from it.

That said, Despicable Me 2 makes these faults easily forgivable through no shortage of charm and several big laughs. The characters are likable and engaging, which helps give the film a generally pleasant tone. They also make the plot much more compelling, considering its lack of surprises. The Minions are adorable and hilarious, and make for plenty of great moments, and the other characters are similarly wonderful. The animation is great, which makes many of its visual gags more effective than they'd be in a less visually interesting movie. Most importantly, it's just overall a funny movie. I laughed several times.

This movie isn't gonna contest my year-end top 10, but it's not really trying to. It just wants to be a fun time for the whole family, and at that it's very successful. It's a fun movie, and I recommend it, especially to families.