RichC2

They probably wanted an accent he didn't want to do.

Benjamin Bratt took over.

RocShemp

Shame that Pacino left.

movieking

Saw a preview of this yesterday and enjoyed it. Bratt does a good job in the role but I would be curious as to what the Pacino role would have been like. Not as good as the original but enjoyable. I'll comment more when more people have seen it...

DJariya

I bought the 1st movie on BD a few days ago for $14.99 and it came with a $7.50 movie cash to see the sequel. I normally don't see cartoons in the theater, but depending on time and motivation, I may check it out.

Groucho

Remember just a few years ago when Eminem was vilified? Now his music has become so mainstream they use to advertise a children's movie!

Dr. DVD

My guess is this being made by Universal, they wanted him to do a variation on Tony Montana. The fact that Bratt is doing the voice suggests the villain will be a "drug lord" type character. I too find it strange that they animated him first. Typically lines are recorded at least a year in advance.


I liked the fist one, but mostly because of the Minions. Love the Minion Mayhem ride at Universal, so they alone will get me into the theater.

GCS

Looking forward to this one and yes I am a minion's fan as well. The trailer with the Eminem song is great. The song works for it and the movie looks like fun. We loved the first one.

mapasu

Saw this with the family last night @ 9:45PM. First 3 shows were sold out. 2 regular, 1 in 3D. The whole crowd was laughing, cheering, applauding. It was a lot of fun. When the minions took over, the theater got loud with cheers and laughs. Very enjoyable and from what I saw, this is going to make serious $.

Mr. Cinema

It earned $4.7 million from shows beginning at 7 pm yesterday. Boxoffice.com is estimating an $80 million 3-day weekend and $130 million for the 5-day.

Dr. DVD

I'm curious as to how, if Pacino recorded all of the dialogue for the character, which according to an article he did, his leaving the project keeps them from using the voice. Is it legalities or something? Apparently the reasons behind him leaving are still a mystery, but I would bet it had less to do with integrity than an attempt to try to get a profit cut of the movie.

Mr.Briggs

Wednesday BO Despicable Me 2 $34+ Million, JOHN CARTER 2 (I mean Lone Ranger) $9.6 Million.

Dr. DVD

Saw it today. One would have to be a pretty stone hearted burnt out cynic to not get enjoyment out of this movie. It was more cute than funny, but the parts that were funny were hilarious. Once again, the Minions stole the show.

I have to say, given what El Macho looked like, it didn't matter who did his voice. He looked nothing like Pacino and I think Bratt was better suited. Pacino would have been pointless in the role and added nothing.

mdc3000

Only about half as good as the first movie - really weak story...they give Wiig nothing to do and El Macho isn't villainous enough to be memorable. I wish Gru had to go undercover more, pretending to be DESPICABLE, but actually sabotaging the evil so that nothing bad happened, would have been way more interesting. Yes the Minions and Gremlinions are awesome but the kids needed more to do as well. I love the first one but thought this was borderline.

Patman

The sequel to "Depicable Me" is here, and it's a worthy follow-up, mainly due to its humor and heart from Gru and the 3 girls he's raising. And then you have the hilarious Minions, I'm a big fans of the Minions. They added a female interest (voiced by Kristen Wiig), paired up to help Gru deal with a villainous threat that leads them to go through suspects at a mall.

The 3D was good (with Gru's nose, it's always a prominent bit of 3D, and the fun with the Minions also lends itself to 3D).

I give it 3 stars, or a grade of B.

fumanstan

I enjoyed it a lot, but I agree about El Macho and giving Gru more things to do. I thought they had a golden chance to do more detective work between Gru and Lucy checking out other stores.

Still, Agnes might be the cutest little girl ever, and the Minions are always fantastic which was enough to carry this movie and make it enjoyable for me.

bluetoast

Went in without having seen the first and expecting mediocrity, since the Minions annoyed me in the trailers. But in the actual movie they're pretty good, so I can understand the appeal, and I enjoyed it overall. Also in the trailers, I didn't like Lucy just whooping everyone's ass without any real reason, so to see her as an actual character in the movie, being nervous, new at the job, that was nice.

Movie itself was pretty damn small in scope, I was expecting a larger overall plot both with the villain's plan and with the actual story. Like others said, more antics in the mall would have been nice at the least. The stuff with the Anti-Villain League didn't last too long, I felt like there could have been more to explore with Ramsbottom being proven wrong.

Joe Schmoe

Just got back from seeing it. The 3D was great all throughout the film, and it really shined during the minion auditions in the closing credits. Although I enjoyed the minions (both the yellow and new purple ones), the rest of the film was weak. Former villain Gru has now settled into domestic life, and that made him dull this time around. I didn't think Kristen Wiig's character, the villain or that chicken were funny. I thought the girls were underused, especially the middle sister (Edith?), and the time spent on Margo's crush didn't contribute much to the story. I thought it was interesting when Ramsbottom said this Anti-Villain League (or whatever it's called) we're now learning about said it takes a big crime for them to get involved and yet they did nothing to prevent the theft of the moon or to retrieve it after it was stolen. I suppose Gru will work for this agency in the sequels so he can continue to play spy, but the title of this franchise no longer fits because there's nothing despicable about him anymore. I didn't hate this movie, but it sure let me down. The first movie took me by surprise, so I had high hopes for the sequel. I give it 2 1/2 stars out of 5 or a grade of C.

The Bus

Saw the movie. It was entertaining but much like the first, no reason to ever see it again. There's really a world of difference between the non-Pixar films and the Pixar films.

bluetoast

Also the funny thing about this movie was the character design. Aside from the principal humans and maybe one or two others, every other background character looked like they were lazily designed, just seemed bland.

story

We rented the first one on Amazon Instant Video on Wednesday and liked it. Saw the second one at the drive-in (Star Trek 2 afterward, for a double-header) and enjoyed it. I liked that it had a larger scale than the first one, particularly in terms of universe building of good vs. evil.

Our toddler daughter loved the experience. She's usually in bed by 7:00pm but was too excited to sleep. The gigantic smile on her face as she sat up against my wife's chest, eating popcorn, eyes affixed to the screen is one of my favorite things, ever.

gp1086

How important is it to remember the first Despicable Me in order to watch the second one?

I saw and mildly enjoyed the first one when it came out a few years ago, but can barely remember the plot.

Giles

something about capturing/minaturizing the moon ...

movieking

What I didn't really get was the lack of any kind of relationship between the girls and Wiigs character, yet the little one was so gung ho about having her as a mother. I know the mother/daughter thing was there to build up a bit of that gap, but I was surprised at how little interaction there was between the 3 girls and Wiig.

gp1086

Haha thanks. I just read the summary on Wikipedia and it came back to me.

onebyone

It was possibly slightly less loveable than the first, but I still had a great time with this one. The audience was into it, the 3d looked fabulous, the voice work was spot on as always... just a good, albeit slightly weird, family time at the movies. I give it an A.