Despicable Me 2 (2013)
★★½ — Despicable Me 2 (2013)
The first Despicable Me (2010) had something genuinely surprising going for it: a grumpy, cold-hearted supervillain who didn't realise he needed a family until three small girls essentially bulldozed their way into his life. It was funny and warm and earned its heart. So when the sequel arrived, I sat down with reasonable expectations. Not too high, not too low. What I got was a film that does most things competently and almost nothing memorably.
Despicable Me 2 isn't bad. I want to be clear about that. The animation is slick and bright, the Minions are still genuinely funny in the right doses, and Steve Carell commits completely to Gru's bumbling attempts at romance with Agent Lucy Wilde, who arrives with boundless energy and a grin like a loaded weapon. There's warmth in the scenes between Gru and his girls, and a few action sequences that are inventive enough to keep you properly engaged. The soundtrack, full of retro pop and catchy original songs, does its job almost too well. "Happy" was inescapable for what felt like the better part of a decade.
But here's the problem: all that polish is covering a pretty thin story. The plot shifts Gru from aspiring villain to reluctant hero, recruited by the Anti-Villain League to track down a purple-haired baddie with a grudge and a serum that turns Minions feral and monstrous. It sounds daft enough to be fun, and occasionally it is. The trouble is the villain himself, who lands with a thud and disappears from memory almost immediately. A good animated film lives or dies by its antagonist, and this one gives us someone who barely registers.
The romance between Gru and Lucy follows the most predictable route imaginable. Meet-cute, misunderstanding, big gesture, resolution. There's nothing wrong with familiar structures, but you have to do something interesting inside them, and the film mostly just moves from beat to beat without surprise. It's the cinematic equivalent of colouring inside the lines very neatly.
And the Minions. Look, I love the Minions in the right context. They're brilliant supporting players, perfectly calibrated for chaos in small bursts. But by the second film, you can already feel the franchise starting to lean on them harder than it should, using their babbling slapstick to fill scenes that aren't pulling their weight on their own. It's a warning sign, one that would prove entirely justified when I sat through Minions (2015) and watched them get swallowed by their own mythology. And if you think that's rough, I've also seen Despicable Me 3 (2017), which suggests the franchise never really course-corrected.
What's missing here, more than anything, is the emotional specificity of the first film. That one was about a man who didn't know he was lonely until it was almost too late. This one is about the same man having a fairly generic spy adventure and falling in love in a fairly generic way. The family dynamic is still sweet in places, but it's no longer the engine driving things. It's more of a comfort blanket draped over a plot that mostly just wants to get to the next gag.
Watchable, then. Harmless. A fine way to spend ninety minutes with kids who won't notice the filler, or on a tired evening when you want something colourful and undemanding. It delivers exactly that and not much more. The original had a quiet, genuine heart beneath its silliness. This sequel swaps that heart for a louder, busier, flashier surface and hopes you won't look too closely.
Two and a half stars. Enjoyable in the moment. Already fading as I write this.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2013 | Watched: 2025-08-10
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Sky Go · Now TV Cinema
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
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Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Hulu · Peacock Premium · Peacock Premium Plus
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Pierre Coffin: Despicable Me (2010) · Despicable Me 3 (2017) · Minions (2015)
More with Steve Carell: Beautiful Boy (2018) · Despicable Me (2010) · Little Miss Sunshine (2006) · Dinner for Schmucks (2010)
More from the 2010s: Wonder (2017) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
