Despicable Me 2

It’s pretty simple. If you enjoyed Despicable Me and had expectations about Despicable Me 2, this is exactly that. It’s what you’d expect and not much more. It’s mostly the same characters with a slightly different angle. Gru has sort of retired from being evil and just takes care of his three girls. But naturally he misses his former day job, and is recruited by the Anti-Villain League to catch current bad guys who want to do evil in the world. He is recruited by his new charming (in her own way) partner, voiced by Kristen Wiig. And together they infiltrate a shopping mall.

It’s a simple setup for an easy followup of the charming first movie in 2010. But the best moments all come from the minions. People in the theater were laughing so hard about their slapstick jokes, my girlfriend asked if there was a laugh track playing in the background. And now that the story of Gru is mostly just fluff, it’s time for the minions to go out on their own. It will take them to the sixties to serve another evil villain — as they have been doing since the beginning of time — in the holiday 2014 film they deserved all along.

Despicable Me 2 is out now (US). + more dates