3.5 stars. Rating: PG, and quite needlessly, for mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang
Thank goodness for the minions.
2010’s Despicable Me got much of its hilarious edge from the personality
transformation experienced by Gru, the vaguely Slavic super-villain who mellows
out — but only somewhat — after encountering a trio of trusting little girls.
 |
| Sent undercover as the owner of a mega-mall's boutique cupcake emporium, Gru is annoyed to discover that he has been saddled with an assisant: Lucy Wilde, an aggressively eager agent of the Anti-Villian League. Their goal: to figure out which neighboring shopkeeper actually is a dastardly criminal mastermind. |
Gru’s introductory strut in that
first film — to a deliciously snarky title song written and performed by
Pharrell Williams — was the stuff of greatness. Here was a gleeful scoundrel
who’d embrace badness big and small, whether stealing the Earth’s Moon, or
stealing candy from a baby. And he wouldn’t merely snatch the sweet from the
crestfallen tyke; he’d replace it with a cod liver oil sucker.
Watching this fellow struggle
against the arrival of a hitherto buried good side — trying to stay wicked in
the face of unconditional love from Agnes, the youngest of his new wards — was
the stuff of classic character comedy.
This sequel’s Gru, alas, has
completed this makeover, and has fully embraced his light side. As a result, he’s
both less interesting and less funny. His inventive genius now reduced to
concocting playful gadgets for Agnes’ birthday party, the low point arrives
when — a paid actress having failed to show up — Gru dresses himself as the
world’s most unlikely fairy princess.
Which, yes, results in a
genuinely poignant moment between Agnes and her de facto daddy.
I don’t intend to suggest that Despicable Me 2 is either disappointing
or unsatisfying: far from it. Returning directors Pierre Coffin and Chris
Renaud maintain their engaging blend of character comedy, goofy slapstick and
oddball peril, and returning scripters Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul certainly know
the territory.
But the latter are on their own
this time, whereas the first film derived from a story by Sergio Pablos ... and
he may be the essential missing ingredient. Despicable
Me 2 is a more conventional animated comedy, in terms of its standard-issue
narrative and predictable plot hiccups. We never knew what would happen in the
first film, which was much of its charm; this sequel, in contrast, lacks that element
of uncertainty.
Fortunately, Daurio and Paul have
the good sense to grant more screen time to the first film’s breakout stars:
the mischievous, hapless and hilariously speech-challenged minions.
We can’t get enough of them, and
this new film takes ample advantage of that fact.
(To be more precise, we certainly
haven’t yet gotten enough of them.
Let’s see what happens next year, when they get their own movie.)
With Gru (again voiced by Steve
Carell) out of the super-criminal game, he has settled into the comfortable
shoes of adoptive parenthood. He dotes on little Agnes (Elsie Fisher), tries to
keep hyperactive Edith (Dana Gaier) out of trouble, and does his best to ignore
Margo’s (Miranda Cosgrove) slide into boy-crazy adolescence.
Gru’s massive underground lab,
once the source of magnificently devious weapons and vile thingamajigs, has
been re-purposed into a factory that crafts signature jams and jellies ... much
to the delight of the minions, who love sampling the raw ingredients. They’re
less interested in the finished result; Gru’s resident genius, Dr. Nefario
(Russell Brand), just can’t get the mix right.
Nor is he interested in trying.
Gru’s first crisis arrives when Dr. Nefario reluctantly departs, having been
offered alternate employment with the promise of actual skullduggery. The
second crisis erupts when Gru is snatched by Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig), an
eager-beaver agent of the Anti-Villain League.
The AVL chief, Silas Ramsbottom
(Steve Coogan), has become deeply disturbed by a recent eruption of
super-villainy, and most particularly by the discovery of a nasty serum that —
in some laboratory test footage — transforms a cute, cuddly bunny into a
purple, frazzle-haired, mindless and indestructible eating machine.
Obviously, such a serum would
have ghastly results, if employed for the wrong purposes.
Borrowing a note from To Catch a Thief, Ramsbottom gives Gru a
cover identity and makes him the owner of a cupcake emporium in a nearby
mega-mall. Ramsbottom is convinced that one of the mall’s other shop owners is
the mastermind behind this dastardly plot; Gru and Lucy — who’s sweet on her
new partner — are tasked with figuring out which
shop owner.
Gru’s suspicion immediately turns
to Eduardo Perez (Benjamin Bratt), the rotund and flirty owner of the nearby
Salsa & Salsa restaurant, because he bears a striking resemblance to
history’s most heinous super-villain ever, El Macho. But that’s not possible,
because El Macho perished years ago, when he rode a dynamite-laden shark into
an erupting volcano.
Evidence points instead to Floyd
Eagle-san (Ken Jeong), proprietor of the local hair-replacement club for men.
But Gru can’t get Eduardo out of his mind ... and the obsession becomes even
more intense when the restaurant owner’s suave son, Antonio (Moises Arias),
makes a move on the smitten Margo.
At this point, Gru’s objectivity has
been compromised, and his increasingly frenzied suggestions fall on
Ramsbottom’s deaf ears.
Meanwhile, Gru’s minions have
been vanishing — singly, and in groups — and spirited to parts unspecified, for
reasons unknown. Gru doesn’t notice for quite some time; it’s not easy to keep
track of several hundred (thousand?) nearly identical yellow, pill-shaped
henchmen in blue little-kid overalls. Even if they do have individual names
such as Kevin, Bob and Stuart.
On top of which, Gru is forced to
contend with various undesired match-making efforts, whether they come from
nosy neighbor Jillian (Nasim Pedrad) or Gru’s own wards. Not to mention his
oil-and-vinegar relationship with Lucy, which we all know is destined for
greater things.
The core plot advances leisurely,
intercut with unrelated minion escapades and sidebar distractions. Some of the
latter integrate nicely with the narrative; others don’t. Gru and Lucy’s battle
with Eduardo’s attack chicken is quite funny, whereas Gru’s blind date with a
fitness-obsessed bottle blonde doesn’t work at all.
The minions pretty much steal the
show, because of their impressionable innocence, their bratty (but benevolent)
tendency toward mischief, and their side-splitting approach toward speech. If
the apparent gibberish sometimes sounds like actual words, that’s no accident;
Coffin and Renaud voice all the minions with a random blend of French, English,
Spanish, Italian and Indian.
So, while a French theater patron
may recognize the minion phrase poulet
tiki masala as an Indian chicken dish, the words certainly don’t have that
context in the storyline.
As for what happens to all those
missing minions, well, let me point out that the filmmakers were inspired by a
1960 Warner Bros. Tweety and Sylvester cartoon, Hyde and Go Tweet. Draw your own conclusions.
Carell has a great time with
Gru’s often exasperated, Eastern European overtones, and the animators do a
correspondingly slick job of matching the character’s expressions and movement
to the actor’s vocal mannerisms. The overly enthusiastic Lucy is coordinated
equally well with Wiig’s mildly snarky delivery.
Bratt is a stitch as the
overblown Eduardo, and Brand is just as funny as the ancient, ultra-lethargic
Dr. Nefario. Cosgrove, Gaier and Fisher are adorably girl-like as their
respective characters.
Mostly, though, this film
benefits from Coffin and Renaud’s unerring sense of timing. They’re equally
adept at both extremes: getting the maximum emotional mileage from a tender
moment between Gru and Agnes, or earning a belly laugh from competitive,
shifty-eyed interactions between minions.
Editor Gregory Perler keeps
things moving at a good clip; the 98-minute length feels just right. And you’ll
definitely want to hang around for the minions’ final-scene cover of the
Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.”
All told, this sequel is a
thoroughly enjoyable lark, with enough to captivate both adult and small-fry
viewers. Any mild disappointment arises mostly from remembering its
predecessor; Coffin and Renaud haven’t maintained the momentum present in (for
example) each new Ice Age entry.
But if faced with an Independence
Day weekend choice between Despicable Me
2 and the overwrought, under-humored and occasionally loathsome new take on
The Lone Ranger, I strongly advise
the former.
You can’t go wrong with the
minions.
No comments:
Post a Comment