Minions aside, the story focuses on the ever lovable baddie, Gru, who after adopting three little girls has given up a life of badness to be a good stay at home dad while trying to start his own line of jams and jellies which he doesn't seem to have a knack for. Gru is satisfied being the world's best single dad, but it becomes obvious very quickly, at least to his girls and the neighborhood moms, that he is missing something, namely the love of a good woman. As if his life were scripted (hey!) Gru meets Lucy an ever-perky secret agent that works for an Anti-Villain agency tasked with bringing Gru in to help them track down a super villain who is planning a really bad thing (which escapes me at this moment, something about turning the minions evil and ruling the world probably). At first Gru is reluctant, both to the job and to the advances of the lovely Lucy, but he eventually comes around to both proposals.
A lot of the humor and heart in this well crafted sequel comes from relationships. Gru and Lucy have a wonderfully awkward repartee for sure, but the real humor comes from Gru's paternal instincts kicking in once his oldest daughter, Margot, starts liking boys, one flirtatious latin boy specifically. Grounding the ridiculous plot in real emotion and relationships like this that make Despicable Me 2 really fun and engaging.
Steve Carell is in characteristically strong form as the voice behind our villain hero and Kristen Wiig brings a delightful foil to Gru's grumpy personae with Lucy's endlessly optimistic, brightly colored Secret Agent. The Minions continue their almost intelligible babbling to great comedic effect, particularly a great send up of Backstreet Boy's "I Swear" and the Village People's "Y.M.C.A." at the end of the film.
It's not a perfect movie by any means. The story was a bit predictable and there weren't any great surprises like I hoped there would be. Gru also felt like a secondary character with so much going on and I don't think he had as central (or humorous) a role as he did in the first film, this is partly due to the increased role of the minions and various subplots. Also, how are these three girls, none of them older than 13, alone so often? I guess the bumbling Minions double as babysitters? All that said, it's a thoroughly enjoyable family film with a lot of heart and plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. Most of my criticism comes from the fact that the first film was so surprising and I love it so much that it's hard not find fault with a film that is "merely very good." But nostalgia can be a very dangerous drug when judging sequels.
