Misanthropic criminal mastermind turned doting foster dad, Steve Carell's Gru is back in this animated comedy sequel to the 2010 box-office hit.
In Despicable Me 2, he's put aside super-villainy in favour of raising his three adoptive daughters, Margo, Edith and Agnes, and has set his Minions to work on cooking up a line of jams and jellies when a secret crime-fighting organisation recruits him to track down the dastardly crook who has made off with a lethal serum.
Gru's spy mission is only fitfully engaging, but it does give him an unexpected love interest in the form of gauche secret agent Lucy Wilde, played by Bridesmaids' Kristen Wiig. Steve Coogan, Russell Brand and Benjamin Bratt also pop up among the voice cast, but it's the zany goggle-wearing yellow-hued Minions who provide most of the film's chuckles.
And it's the Minions who justify the otherwise pointless 3D when they break the fourth wall at the start of the credits with a set of loopy antics that had the knee-high viewers in front of me in raptures.
In cinemas now on general release.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM9sKpQOuEw
