Irish Woman and I took the kids to see Despicable Me 2 this afternoon.  We all enjoy the original, and to be honest, this one was just as good.

The plot revolves around Gru and his adopted daughters, Margo, Edith, and Agnes, voiced by Steve Carell, Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Geier, and Elsie Fisher.  After giving up being a super-villain, Gru has begun using his extensive research and production capabilities to develop a line of jelly and jam.  An international agency that tries to track down evil geniuses and bring them to justice recruits Gru to find out who stole a serum that turns animals into vicious killers.  Enter Lily, voiced by Kristen Weig, who partners with Gru to find the super villain and the formula.  Adventure ensues, and we all learn a valuable lesson about friendship and family.

The strengths of this movie are the same as for the original.  The voice acting is excellent, the animation is top-notch, and the humor is appropriate both for adults and children.  The minions, the little yellow fellows who work for Gru, are back with more physical humor than ever, and they make the movie go from an enjoyable romp into a side-splitting comedy on multiple occasions.  The way that the story connects on a personal level is how it deals with the family dynamic between Gru and his girls.  As a member of a blended family, the way that the movie deals with that is, to me, wonderful.

One of the few weaknesses of the movie, and there aren’t many, is that it follows very much the same formula as the first one.  Gru has a task to do, he does it, someone close to him gets into danger because of it, and he goes to the rescue.  The formula is finished by a disco song played at the end of the movie.  That being said, even when I recognized this, it didn’t distract from a wholly enjoyable movie.

One other quibble I had was the absence of Julie Andrews, who voiced Gru’s mother in the original movie.  This was a tad disappointing, as I enjoyed that character as much as I did any of the others.

Overall, I’d recommend this movie to anyone who enjoyed the first one.  You definitely need to have seen the first movie in order to understand some of the major plot points in this one, but it’s not much of a chore to enjoy a good movie so that you can more fully enjoy this one.