In revisiting my review of the original Despicable Me, I rediscovered my closing line: “But will children
like it? Of course, because it has a fart gun that will make your 8-year-old
howl with delight.”
I bring this up, because there I was in Despicable Me 2 and, sure enough, out comes the fart gun. My watch
read something like 12 minutes into the film. And then, as if that weren’t
enough, a 21 fart-gun salute for a retiring super-villain sidekick. “I counted
22,” the retiree says. “Oops,” a character blushes.
If this sort of thing interests you, then fear not: Despicable Me 2 is more of the same. If
you find yourself traumatized simply by the very discussion of flatulence,
including the weaponized variety, then let me recommend the rest of this fine newspaper,
which is fart-free.
To everyone else, you bathroom humorists, let me reiterate that
most of my complaints about the first Despicable
Me — poorly designed plot, Steve Carell’s agonizing voice acting, the film’s
defective rationale for villainy, fart cannons — are all returning here in this
more upbeat, more effervescently sweet sequel. I didn’t love it, but it had me
continuously smiling. Mostly because of those little yellow pill-shaped minions,
cleverly called Minions, with their Captain Nemo diving goggles and their
Spanish-French-Polish dialects of jibber-jabber.
The Minions are the Oompa Loompa-like helpers to supervillain Gru
(Carell), who learned to be an upstanding suburbanite after he adopted children
in his scheme to steal the moon in the first movie. The moon was eventually returned
and Gru warmed to his three adopted daughters. When we pick up with him he’s
still maintaining that burdensome abstention from crime, though only barely.
Gru is asked to help an anti-villain agency that has tracked a
supervillain to a nearby mall, where Gru and special agent Lucy (Kristen Wiig)
are given undercover jobs as trendy cupcake bakers to gather information on the
suspects. There is a romance, espionage capers, spy gadgets and a double-switch
with the villain — pretty standard stuff.
This is where I admit a guilty pleasure. The Minions … I simply
love them. Without them the movie would be unbearably dull, but with them it
becomes something deeply and outlandishly sillier. This sequel has hundreds of
them, bouncing around and making cheery little non-sensical babbling. Several
of them get names — Kevin, Bob, Dave, Stuart — and they’re given more prominent
roles, though I could barely tell them apart aside from their most basic
costumes: Minion in French Maid Costume, Minion With Jar Stuck On Head, or
Minion In Traditional Golf Garb.
They largely serve Gru and his various schemes — jams and jellies
in this film — though the Minions also wander about in their state of perpetual
surprise and wonder. Early in the film, there’s a gag with a bunch of them in
medieval costumes. One misplaced spiked mace later and they’re all brawling in
a whimsical little pile on the lawn. In another sequence, a fire is started on
Gru’s desk and a Minion fire brigade crashes through the door: one is blindly
swinging an ax so fast he hacks through the wall, another isn’t strong enough
to work the fire hose and, finally, another serves as nothing more than the
siren as he wails into a bullhorn. These are disposable gags, but they’re just
what the movie needs.
While the Minions may serve infants, younger children and this
wayward movie critic, they can’t sustain Gru’s unpleasant spy plot, which
repeatedly dips its fat toe into uncomfortable racial stereotypes. Italian and
Chinese characters are lampooned heartily, but none as bad as a Mexican
character named Eduardo. He owns a Mexican food restaurant that has a “loco”
guard-chicken named Burrito. Eduardo’s vault is a Mayan pyramid. The code to
the vault involves salsa dancing to the tune of “La Cucaracha.” The jokes are
light and carefree, but altogether questionable in a children’s movie. Another
scene is even worse: Gru, annoyed that a neighbor is ringing his doorbell,
mimes pointing a gun at his head, pulling the trigger and then falling over
dead. How do you explain a suicide gag to your little ones?
If your children liked the first movie, they’ll adore Despicable Me 2, though they (and you)
won’t find it as rewarding or magical as a Pixar movie or any other children’s
movie lacking a fart cannon.
Me, I went for the Minions. And I’ll keep going back for the
Minions. They’re that good.
