Despicable Me 2

Cast: Steve Carell, Kristin Wiig, Benjamin Bratt
Director: Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud

You know when your Instagram/Facebook/Twitter feed is being flooded with friends showing off their minion things/food items? It just made me want to check out Despicable Me 2, even though I wasn't a fan of the first installment. On the day that I was spending with my kid sister, there was this big time gap between afternoon nap and dinner party, so I thought, why not catch a movie? Granted that I was spending the day with her, this was the only choice (although there really wasn't much of a choice, considering Pacific Rim and The Lone Ranger were the only other movies) we had. My sister did enjoy the movie, and while it was filled with the promises of the cute minions, I found the succeeding flick undermine its predecessor in terms of substance. 

Gru has retired from his villainous ways and instead decided to focus on fatherhood. However, he gets recruited to an anti-villainy organization in hopes of finding the villain behind stealing a research lab that contains a dangerous chemical. While Gru takes on the mission, he finds himself with a new partner who has praised his work, as well as dealing with daughters, with one of them starting to get smitten with boys. Now take that plot and stuff it with minion antics and sprinkle it with a bit of Agnes' charm and there you have Despicable Me 2. 

The sequel isn't plot driven, nor does it touch on the sentimentality of the first movie. This time Gru and the plot takes a side step and the minions basically take over the screen with all their cuteness. While there is some ample Gru substance, it still felt like it played a minor subplot to what the sequel was really all about. The villain doesn't make much of an interesting character, and his crime of choice would have been much better onscreen if it actually happened. The same goes for Lucy, while she flaunted all her cool gadgets, she doesn't make an impact, as her character seemed limited. 

Granted all the funny parts went to the minions, this is a sequel that is made to entertain, and it did. My sister liked it and was laughing at all the right parts, so it really did it for children. While I thought that the minions didn't have much screen time in the first movie, I would have liked it if their presence was more incorporated to the movie, rather than just making it burst out of nowhere. Hopefully their spin-off movie would do just that.