Despicable Me 2 [Blu-ray]

Yeah, I couldn't wait until release day for Despicable Me 2. The originalBlu-ray was once at the very top of my Top Must Own 3D Titles list, and knowinghow much the animators favored pop-out effects, I was certain going into thisfilm that it would aim to please. I was not disappointed....and neither will you.Picking up some short time after the original film, we find Gru (Steve Carell)retired from being a super villain as he concentrates on being a father and alegitimate businessman. You know, instead of blowing things up and creatinggeneral havoc, he he's entertaining young kids at a Birthday party, dressed asa fairy princess. However, that life suddenly comes to a screeching halt whenan agent named Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig) persuades Gru to help the Anti VillainLeague hunt down a mastermind who has taken off with a secret formula thatturns innocent people into monsters.With most all of the original cast and filmmakers returning for this sequel,Despicable Me 2 aims higher than its predecessor thanks to the amount ofemphasis that is placed on its unusual stars, the Minions. This was a smartthing to do given the fact that any scene with these lovable creatures managesto get the biggest laughs, while the rest of the film sort of "hits" or "misses" whenit comes to trying to retain the magic of the original.It becomes rather impossible to say anything negative about an animatedtransfer like this that has been created entirely within the digital realm. It'svirtually flawless, with its vivid palette of colors and razor-sharp images thatbeautifully detail the film's tremendous animation efforts. I really loved watchingthe scenes that take place in the Minion tropical paradise. I think they show offthe most impressive levels of color from deep sky blues to the banana yellows ofthe Minions themselves. Black levels are something to behold here as well,particularly evident in young Agnes's (Elsie Fisher) hair or Dr. Nefario's (RussellBrand) gloves. This is a transfer that is going to really make your display showits worth.As for the 3D, it's got a lot going for it as well. First, there is an ample amount ofdepth that separates foreground and background objects. Animation is perfectlylayered throughout the film so that certain objects (such as overhead light fixtures)stand more prominently forward than everything else. The use of descriptivecomputer overlay gives a very nice 3D effect. Of course, as with the original film,Despicable Me 2 plays to its audience, taking every opportunity it can to throwprops outwards. From an inflatable pony, to unraveling party horns, to floatingshards of glass -- there is always something coming at the audience. Look at Gru'snose and the way it always seems to poke itself out of the screen. Unfortunately,outside of a few character hand extends, the outward reach seems rather limitedfor the in-film content. The real deal comes during the ending credits (which youmust watch completely through), where various objects mishandled by the Minionscome the furthest forward. These are the real 3D moments to savor. I supposeUniversal was afraid viewers would skip the credits so they have included most (or all)of the credit hijinks in the opening menu.Ghosting issues are ever-so minor. In fact, outside of the ghosting on the openingcredits (same problem as the original film) and a bubble sequence during theclosing credits, I hardly noticed any issues on my active shutter display.Despicable Me 2 features a 5.1 DTS-MA track that is just as engaging as the filmitself. Effects work their way effortlessly across the channels. Dialogue is clearthroughout while the film's music seems to get even distribution around the entiresound field. LFE is very much present in some of the film's action sequences,particularly those involving the flying magnet. There's a lot of toe-tapping musicalmoments to enjoy here. I was most pleased that one of my favorite instrumentalsby Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra was included.Despicable Me 2 arrives as a 3-Disc set (Blu-ray 3d+Blu-ray+DVD and Digital HD)housed in a really cool lenticular cardboard slipcover that features a blown partyfavor. There's a wealth of extra material that I really didn't have time to spend with,but I did take the opportunity to watch one of the three included mini-movies (theonly one in 3D), Puppy. It's actually a very cute short that features great dimensionaldepth (though no pop-out).Despicable Me 2 falls a bit short of the original, but still remains quite funny thanksto the time that is spent with its lovable Minions. I can't get enough of those littleguys and I look forward to their own spin-off feature in 2014.Meanwhile, this is yet another "must have" release for anyone that wants to enjoy thefull potential their 3D display has to offer. Despicable Me 2 is just plain "fun" and itmakes for one of the very best 3D releases of 2013.

Funny for both children and Adults

Kids enjoyed another great Minions movie!!!

They’d watch it over and over if I’d let them.

Fun to watch

I can't believe I loved this movie. I anticipated hating it. I thought that people that were super into Despicable Me were weird. I thought that the mumbling minions were dumb. I thought their association with Burger King was strange at best. But when my 4-year-old twins wanted desperately to watch it, I finally succumbed. And I lol'ed. It was actually good. Kudos, Steve Carell. Turns out you're not the worst after all.Here's Ebert's review. I can't give you anything more in-depth than that.I enjoyed 2010's "Despicable Me" immensely, so I approached "Despicable Me 2" with a wary eye. "Despicable Me" told a funny, sweet, self-contained story about a guy named Gru (Steve Carrell) who renounces villainy and embraces fatherhood. It ended on a note that required no further speculation. Satisfied viewers like me sang "So Long, Farewell" to Gru and his crew. Reps at Universal looked at "Despicable Me's" $251 million dollar domestic box office gross and sang "Never Can Say Goodbye." So, another summer weekend brings another summer sequel.WATCH NOW"Despicable Me 2" is as serviceable as it is unnecessary. Therein lies the rub for me. Here I sit on the fence between 2-1/2 and 3 stars, unsure of where I will fall. On the "thumbs down" side, there's dissatisfaction with a returning hero who is far blander than his original incarnation; he's been neutered by the one thing that made "Despicable Me"'s ending so satisfying. On the "thumbs-up" side is a series of clever touches made with love and attention by cast and crew. These moments are so good I almost feel despicable for being undecided. So this review is a battle between Evil Film Critic Odie and Emotional Moviegoer Odie. You have a luxury I currently do not: You can look at the star rating above and see who won.The opening of "Despicable Me 2" is an example of its brash cleverness. An entire intelligence team and their outpost is attacked by a huge horseshoe magnet straight out of that Warner Bros. cartoon subsidiary, The Acme Company. Almost everyone and everything is pulled comically into the sky and relocated, save for a port-a-potty and its terrified inhabitant. This act of vandalism attracts the attention of the AVI, an organization that tracks and reports the kind of villainy Gru partook in back in the days of "Despicable Me." The AVI sends out agent Lucy (Kristen Wiig) to ask Gru to use his powers of villainous deduction to figure out who's behind these extreme demonstrations of magnetic personality. Lucy's idea of asking nicely is electrocuting Gru with a "lipstick taser" before tossing him into the trunk of her superspy car-slash-plane-slash-boat.Before his Meet Cute with Lucy, Gru was living a boring, domesticated life. Now retired, the only despicable act he is perpetrating on society is a series of horrific tasting jams and jellies. It drives his colleague Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand) to resign and take a position with a new villain. Gru's new project will help his undercover operation as a vendor at the local mall. Lucy believes the mastermind AVI seeks is one of the other store owners at the mall. Suspects include a hairdresser, whose appearance conjures up images of "Shampoo" recast with Paul Williams, and an extremely masculine Mexican restaurant owner whom Gru thinks bears strong resemblance to a bad guy named "El Macho." Since El Macho es muerte (his death scene will put hair on your chest), Gru is immediately suspicious.Al Pacino was supposed to play Eduardo, the guy Gru thinks is El Macho. Al left the movie, but his accent apparently remained. Benjamin Bratt picks up the most over-the-top Hispanic accent since Tony Montana and runs a marathon with it. His line readings are a blast, though some viewers might find Eduardo somewhat politically incorrect. Whether Eduardo is El Macho isn't important; he brings much needed spark to "Despicable Me 2," upstaging Gru at every turn. In fact, until the climax, everyone upstages Gru. Carrell's accented line readings are still a pleasure, but I wanted more of the old Gru's scheming."Despicable Me 2" does offer a few flashes of what endeared me to its hero in the first place. Gru's suspicions about Eduardo increases tenfold when his eldest daughter Margo (Miranda Cosgrove) feasts her eyes on Eduardo's teenage son Antonio (Moises Arias). Gru's amusingly unsuccessful (and rather mean) attempts to keep Margo from growing up have a familiar ring of disaster for any dad raising a daughter. Gru even brings his freeze gun out of retirement to cool Antonio's raging hormones, though he aims it at the wrong parts of this lothario.While Gru worries about Margo's love life, she and her sisters Agnes (Elsie Fisher) and Edith (Dana Gaier) worry about his, even setting him up on vHarmony (or whatever that dating site is that caters to the wrong side of the law). When Agnes sees Lucy, she correctly pegs that Gru has a thing for her. This potential Mommy subplot is designed to inject emotion into "Despicable Me 2." While it works for the most part (Agnes' big, expression-filled eyes are the animators' most glorious creations), nothing in the sequel comes as close to yanking my heartstrings as the moment when Gru, literally caught between the moon and New York City in the original, sees that pink ballet recital ticket floating in space."Despicable Me 2" lags on occasion, but every time I found my attention waning, the filmmakers did something wicked to goose me. Many of these moments involve my second favorite thing about "Despicable Me," Gru's minions. The cheerful little yellow creatures with overalls become integral plot points this time, undergoing a Gremlins-style metamorphosis to the dark side courtesy of our mystery villain. This leads to a nod to Philip Kaufman's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" that, dare I say, is worth the price of admission. The minions also figure in the second dressed-in-all-white homage to '90s music to appear in a 2013 summer film. I laughed so hard I almost spat out my soda. It was at that moment that I found myself torn about my star rating.This is where you came in. While I remain disappointed that the sequel gives me a subdued Gru and an uneven pace, I keep remembering things about "Despicable Me 2" that make me smile. For every meh moment, there's almost 2 well-conceived gags or lines. The voice talent remains top-notch, with Wiig, Bratt, Steve Coogan and the returning Russell Brand as stand-outs. The 3-D, as far as I can tell, is quite good, especially during the closing credits. (Full disclosure: like some of Gru's minions, I've only got one working eye, which turns 3-D into 2.25-D.) Some of the minor plot points pay off big time. I'm as enamored of the Pharrell Williams songs in this one as I was in the first film (and they're well used). And directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, and screenwriters Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul milk a few sweet moments of genuine emotional heft from the relationship between Gru and his kids.With all that in mind, I have decided to award three stars to "Despicable Me 2." Besides, the Evil Film Critic has to win sometimes.

Good fun family movie! In the words of minions: banana potato!!

Enjoyed it.

他のお店でたまにスチールブック買うけど、凹みキズが凄いけど！全然、綺麗だった。素晴らしい😀

My husband and I saw the trailers of this movie and we had a feeling that it might also be a really fun movie to watch like 'Despicable Me' when it first came out. Well, we bought it and have now seen it. We got many laughs out of this and yes, when it came to some of the scenes in this movie some of them WERE a bit far fetched, but we still think that it was a really fun movie to watch.For me, it takes something quite unique to be able to make me laugh as much as I did while watching this movie and if I can get a few laughs out of an animated movie (or any movie for that matter) then it was really worth my dollar!! As for the first one and this one, in comparison, they have two totally different storylines and are NOT in any way similar to each other. In both movies each scene was different and there were no signs of 'same scenes taken from the previous'. Both Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2 have excellent storylines.When I hear other people say that they DIDN'T like this one (or movies like these) is it because there is not 'alot of violence' in it to make it a good movie (as far as they're concerned)????? What IS IT about the violence in movies that makes the movie better is what I'd like to know????? Plus what worries me is this: if there ARE people that feel movies these days NEED that 'violence' in them before they like it or they rate it a five star movie and think it a good movie, then it really makes me wonder what kind of people they actually are????????As for this movie AND THE FIRST ONE -- I have no regrets in buying these two, and the nice thing about these two movies are that we will have the privilege to watch it again whenever we want.

Nach dem Erfolg des ersten Teils war klar, dass eine Fortsetzung nicht lange auf sich warten lässt. Und durch den Hype um die knuffigen Minions war auch im Vorfeld zu erahnen, dass die kleinen gelben "Teufel" eine größere Rolle spielen werden als im ersten Teil, was ich aber ganz und gar nicht schlimm finde. Im Gegenteil, meiner Meinung nach ist die Balance zwischen der Story um Gru und seine Töchter (Gru als Ex-Schurke wird beauftragt die Welt zu retten...) und den Minions perfekt gelungen. Ich wurde hervorragend unterhalten und habe mich herrlich amüsiert und ich finde die Fortsetzung hätte kaum besser sein können. Und auch wenn in der nächsten Fortsetzung (Minions, voraussichtlich Sommer 2015) die Minions einen noch höheren Stellenwert einnehmen, solange die Story nicht gänzlich auf der Strecke bleibt und den Machern weiterhin noch Gags einfallen... Also ich bin schon gespannt und freu mich! Abgesehen von den Filmen könnte ich mir die Minions auch gut für zu Hause vorstellen :-)Nun zur Bewertung der BluRay:Das Steelbook ist sehr schlicht und einfach, dennoch schön. Auf der Rückseite befindet sich ein Evil Minion und aufgeklappt schauen die beiden sich in die Augen. Das Steelbook enthält die 3D BluRay inkl. dem Mini-Abenteuer "Puppy" in 3D, die restlichen Extras befinden sich auf der 2D BluRay und gliedern sich wie folgt:3 Minion-Kurzfilme (Puppy, Panik im Postraum, Übungsräder)Making Of der Minion-KurzfilmeEine erweiterte Szene (Gru-Titis)Die MinionsBöse MinionsEine Gru-mäßige TransformationEl Hombre Malo: Die Schurkereien von El MachoGrus MädchenSpielereien im ÜberflussAudiokommentar mit den Regisseuren Chris Renaud & Pierre CoffinBeide BluRays machen schon beim Einlegen Spaß, da einen drei Minions mit ihrem Vorstellungsgespräch für den Minion Film als Hauptmenü begrüßen und bespaßen, einfach köstlich!!Die Bildqualität ist absolut top, wir gucken mit 3D Beamer auf einer 240cm Leinwand und ich hatte absolut nichts auszusetzen, Farben, Schärfe, Kontrast, alles auf ganz hohem Niveau (ist ja auch schließlich eine Computeranimation). Auch der 3D Effekt war toll, sehr plastisch und an den richtigen Stellen sehr schöne Effekte (Seifenblasen im ganzen Raum). Die Tonqualität ist ebenfalls sehr gut, wobei die deutsche Spur lediglich in DTS 5.1 vorliegt und somit nicht ganz State of the Art, zumal die englische Spur in DTS-HD Master Audio vorliegt und man nur die deutsche Synchro hätten reinmischen müssen...Alles in allem aber ein super unterhaltsamer Film für die ganze Familie und eine gelungene Fortsetzung in einem schönen Steelbook verpackt, daher 5 Sterne!Als DVD-Käufer kann ich den Frust jedoch verstehen, dass hier am Bonusmaterial gespart wurde kostet natürlich Punkte, in Bezug auf die BluRay kann ich allerdings nicht meckern...

Prefer the couch & no one talking!

Nice one