Movie Review: Despicable Me 2

Years ago, I had seen the first Despicable Me movie and thought, wow, while it wasn’t original.  It had a lot of elements that made me love it.  Sure you can’t understand the minions, but their antics are more than enough to keep you engaged, even as an adult.  Despicable Me 2 takes what started in the first one and builds on it.  At the very core of the story, it is about Gru finding a woman so that his kids can have a mom.  I think Universal missed an opportunity to prove that single parenting, while not easy, is the norm and kids can succeed in a family with only one parent, even if that isn’t optimal.  I realise, having no kids, how dare I say that, but it is what it is, as one of my co-workers likes to say.

The story starts off with Gru hosting a birthday party for Agnes, the youngest of his adopted daughters.  It becomes clear that he is no longer being ‘evil’ anymore, but going to sell legitimate wares, jellies and jams.  A large installation with radioactive chemicals gets stolen and a secret organisation calls on Gru to help them figure out which villain may have done it.   Gru is then paired up with a new agent and hilariousness ensues.

While this movie doesn’t have the same punch that the first one did, I still found it both funny and touching at times.  Gru’s character evolves and he does care about the girls and their lives.  There is a great sequence where Margo is trying to date a boy and Gru plays the perfect over-protective father.  Though the movie is probably going to be pulled soon, this one is well worth seeing.