Despicable Me 2

There will never be another product in 2013 that is capable of producing as much raw uncut joy as "Despicable Me 2".  This is just a lot of fun, and honestly, that's all I need to say.  Do you want to be happy today?  This very second?  Go see "Despicable Me 2".

The original "Despicable Me" (I guess now retroactively known as "Despicable Me 1") was a pretty nice surprise back in 2010, where it was a sweet little parody of super villains with a cute heart.  Audiences walked out from "Despicable Me" entirely satisfied with big grotesque grins on their faces like they were all drunk on pressurized Joker Gas.  I had my own grotesque concrete grin for about a week and a half.  This is a film series about cartoony super villain and spy antics, three lovable little girls, and an army of hilarious little yellow pill minions and their mischief.  If you're looking for a template as to how to make an excellent family cartoon take "Despicable Me" as your guide:  loving satire, lovable characters, and innocent jokes that can make a person of any age giggle.  As it turns out, the secret ingredient to making a fantastic kid's movie is none other than Love.  Love is all you need.

"Despicable Me 2" is something of an inferior film, the hideous involuntary Joker grin lasted only three days, but that's still a great deal better than most films can pull off. While the original film was about Gru, a cliche Germanic supervillain learning to open his life up to three little girls, now its about Gru, a reformed Germanic super spy learning to open up his life to a yet another female influence, and this is one he can have sex with!  Because the alternative is simply too horrifying for words.  Anyway, the focus this time is a little more scatterbrained, with Gru's new job as a superspy sharing time with a massively expanded chorus of Minion festivities, and then sharing time with the little girls, who are now something of an afterthought to the larger story.  Gru, the girls, the villains, and even the new quirky and well-rounded love interest character all sort of lose focus as the film hammers in new Minion slapstick and entire Minion song and dance numbers.  But again, its all done with love.  And love is all you need.

Need I say more?   I loved this movie.