Wednesday, July 17, 2013

DESPICABLE ME 2

Steve Carell is back in the role of everyone's favorite villain-turned-father-figure Gru. Let me start off by saying that I love Carell and I love the Gru accent and I like very much the first Despicable Me. This time around, Gru has been conscripted by the Anti-Villain League to find the villain responsible for trying to melt the polar ice-caps! Kristen Wiig joins the cast as Lucy, a green-as-grass agent at the AVL who ends up partnered with Gru for the duration of the mission. The character is a perfectly acceptable inclusion, but Wiig's performance is just annoying as all hell; I really was disappointed that she gave such a bad performance, alternating overdoing it and sounding almost bored. Jason Segel not returning was somewhat disappointing also, as I'm a huge fan of his work.

Gru's three daughters were the pivotal point of the first movie, and that's what gave the movie its charm. This theme of a bad guy being a good dad doesn't completely carry through into the second movie, although there are a couple great subplots involving the girls, despite them being common cinema tropes (IE the oldest getting a crush on a boy and Gru being uncomfortable with the idea). The opening scene in particular was a great way to reintroduce the family, and set up the secondary premise of the film: Gru finding a woman to love and be a mother figure to the girls.

This is what led to the most emotionally charged sequences, especially between Gru and Agnes, the youngest (like when Gru told her to pretend she had a mom for her performance at the upcoming Mother's Day pageant, and she responded with "I can do that! I do that all the time!" My heart melted). Unfortunately, these beautiful moments are completely undercut by the majority of the script. This is Illumination Entertainment, the same studio that made The Lorax and Hop, so I'm not expecting super compelling narratives or dialogue. However, there were far too many jokes that were either too obvious or badly delivered (anything Kristen Wiig said, for example). The character development for Gru also felt strange to me; the idea that he would suddenly be so willing to work for the Anti-Villain League after a life of being a villain didn't quite make sense. The first movie had a good balance between slapstick Looney Tunes comedy and well written humor and story, so it's disappointing that the humor here just wasn't at the same level. I'll be so bold as to say that there were moments when the movie was walking that dangerous Shrek the Third line where it started to feel like the writers were trying way too hard. Did I mention that I hate Shrek the Third like I hate getting mosquito bites on a sunburn?

For all the shortcomings of the script, the movie does have some redeeming qualities, the first of which is the absolutely gorgeous animation. At the forefront of my memory is a first person perspective sequence in front of Gru's house that is absolutely exquisite. Animation technology has made great strides in the past five years, and it shows. There's a moment near the end that takes place out at sea, and the water effects on the ocean's surface and the sunset reflecting off of it are approaching the Uncanny Valley, and yet still fit the cartoon world at the same time; I am reminded of Marlin's scene looking for the boat at the beginning of Finding Nemo.

Also a huge boon for the movie is the ever-adorable Minion horde. These guys are back and more hilarious than ever. The Minions manage to be a critical part of the story while also providing most of the movie's sight gags, leaving the smarter humor, where available, to the main characters, which I find to be a clever deflection. The Minions are well deserving of the attention they've been getting.

I'm a musician myself so I'm always devoting a portion of my brain to absorbing a movie's soundtrack. The music in a movie has the power to steer your emotions without you realizing that it's happening, so it's very important that the musical cues at the critical moments are memorable. I was sort of underwhelmed with this soundtrack. It had all the necessary returning secret agent style themes and motives that were in the first movie, and admittedly those are a whole lot of fun. It's the contextual emotional one-off movements that more often than not felt generic and not particularly moving, with one notable exception during a Lucy scene near the end of the film; I'll leave the specifics for you to see the movie. It's just disappointing to me when a movie's score doesn't pack the right emotional punch.

 Despicable Me 2 is a fun film with several great jokes that are drowned out by an excess of bad jokes. The story had a lot of potential but didn't quite hit the mark. It sounds like a decent premise on paper, but the execution just didn't pack the punch of the first movie. I feel like all the heart the franchise had to offer was offered up in the first movie. It didn't quite feel like a cash-in on the franchise, but it wasn't quite up to par either. Some bad performances from certain voice-actors named Kristen Wiig really removed me from the experience, and the story felt a little contrived at times.

It's definitely worth seeing, but don't pop the extra money for 3D; the beautiful animation will actually benefit from watching the movie without the 3D glasses dimming the image. I love 3D, and I have a 3DTV in my room. I just think the effect does more for live action movies than it does for super vivid colorful animation. The depth of field is fun but I don't think that its worth detracting brightness and sharpness from the vivid images created by animators.

A very funny movie.. It's good for childrens. My niece enjoy this movie.
Thank you Filebook (www.filebook.com.ph) for giving a copy of this movie.
If you want to grab click here -->  http://tinyurl.com/qddoj3e

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