Pixar has been the main game in the animation town ever since Toy Story came alive in a deserted metaphorical toy room in 1995 and won our hearts with vividly-realised characters, clever, smart, emotionally insightful scripts and visuals so sharply drawn that you swore Woody, Buzz and the others were just as alive as they said they were.
It’s not that other animated films were bad; it’s simply that Pixar managed, in ways affecting and consistently well-executed, to tell stories with vivacity, truth and huge amounts of poignant humanity, and to tell them better than any animation houses such as Illumination who have brought us the Despicable Me, The Secret Life of Pets, Minions and pertinent to this review, the Sing movies.
You could convincingly argue that many of Illumination’s films came close to wonderful, full of a sense of cheeky fun, characters with attitude and personality and some straight-to-the-heart emotional impact that endeared them deeply to audiences, all attributes true of their best films like The Secret Life of Pets, Sing and Minions, who for all of their whimsical silliness actually had some sage lessons on belonging, loyalty and going all out for family.
But it’s not, you could argue, until the transcendent joy of Sing 2 that Illumination has managed to turn all that near-promise of Pixar-like magic – but not exactly the same; where would be the fun in that? – into a film that includes all the things you want of an animated feature and then some, delivering a knock-it-out-of-the-park movie that has you wishing you could jump up on the stage with all the characters when they finally achieve their much longed-for musical dreams.
On paper, many of the elements in Sing 2 aren’t that daring (not a criticism, even slightly, simply a statement of fact).
The gang from the first film, having realised their dreams to make music their careers, are all performing in their hometown under the watchful eye of sweetly ambitious impresario Buster Moon (Matthew McConnaughey) who has conjured up a delightfully entertaining take on Alice in Wonderland which takes a slew of popular songs, much as the first film did, all set against gloriously coloured backdrops that give the nascent pop stars a chance to strut their gregariously talented stuff.
Everyone looks exuberantly happy to be doing what they love the most with mother of 24 piglets Rosita (Reese Witherspoon), ex-criminal empire heir apparent Johnny the gorilla (Taron Egerton), flamboyantly playful pig Gunter (Nick Kroll) and shy but vocally spectacular teenage elephant Meena (Tori Kelly) all absolutely in their element.
It’s a joy to watch simply to see them all so happy and it kicks off a film that asks what it is you do when your initial dream of getting into music is realised?
Do you stick with an admittedly popular show in a smaller city and bask in the contentment of living your best creative life or do you, like Buster and the gang are clearly itching to do, set your sights on bigger musical fish and hope that the talent scout in the audience, stylish canine Suki Lane (Chelsea Peretti) will love your small regional show and talk up you up to the big gun of entertainment, Jimmy Crystal (Bobby Canavale) in Las Vegas-like RedShore City and take you to the big leagues?
Why the latter of course so you can imagine how crushed Buster and the show’s like-family cast are when Suki says thanks-but-no-thanks and leaves them to their small town dreams; but hey this is a buoyantly inspirational, song-filled animation slice of find your bliss joy, completely with lavishly colourful animation to match, and so everyone sets out to Redshore City to guerrilla perform to Crystal and sneak in and around the gatekeeper.
It’s all pretty much by the book at that point but done with so much energy, charisma and good heart that, if you didn’t fall in them with all the characters, including aspiring rock chick porcupine Ash (Scarlett Johansson) in the first film, you will undoubtedly fall hard now.
It’s that kind of film – less about gross ambition at the expense of others and far more about helping each other in your found family, which is bigger and wider by the end of Sing 2 when just about everyone finds their happy place in a mutually-supportive group, and making the world a better musical place all around.
It’s that thunderingly big theatre full of heart that powers Sing 2 and powers it magnificently and moving well.
Packed full of all kinds of big hearts from the likes of Coldplay, Elton John and U2 – part of the film centres around entreating a reclusive former big rock star lion Clay Calloway, played by Bono, to join the big show Crystal offers the gang in Redshore City, a make-or-break deal that could just about end them all or make their greatest dreams come true – Sing 2 is worth the price of admission purely for the richness of the way in which everyone is only prepared to live out their dream if it can be realised without affecting anyone else’s chances.
Sure, the film is daffy and OTT silly at times, reflecting the bombastically mischievous streak which is the appealing hallmark of Illumination films, thanks in part to its willingness to go big and go manically comedic, whether its Buster’s assistant Miss Crawly (Garth Jennings who, as with Sing, wrote and directed this sequel) trying to escape Calloway’s intruders begone tactics or Buster desperately trying to get Suki to change her mind and endorse them, but at every turn, whether its visual shenanigans or an epic song performance, and there are plenty of them, the film wear its heart obviously and enthusiastically on its sequin-studded sleeve.
It is a little twee and saccharine sweet at times, but never fatally so, but everything is subsumed beneath the sheet loveliness of dreams being collectively realised, friends and frenemies lifted up and justice being served even if you have to go to some hilariously extravagant lengths to make it happen.
Sing 2 is an unalloyed joy which takes Pixar-levels of affecting humanity and applies them to explorations of dreams lost and found, the power of grief to take away but also to ebb away and spur you back towards what you love when you’re ready – the time it takes to respect pain and loss is a mark on how narratively rich the film is in-between the silly quips and slapstick exuberance – and the way in which this can all happen not in competition with each other but as a team, as a family, all of you supporting each other to finally reach that long-await finish line.
As happiness goes, Sing 2 has it in a great big bottle and it’s full to overflowing with every cheery number, every colourfully lush set piece and every intimate moment of connection and heartfelt sharing, all of which add up to likely the best thing Illumination has ever done, a beguilingly entrancing, feel good mix (that lasts well beyond the viewing, a test for any animated flick that the film passes with flying colours) of everything good in the world that proves good guys do finish last and that they will be singing their lungs out while they do it.