Sing 2 fails to reach the heights they set out to achieve as Halsey and Bono join the line-up.
Illumination Entertainment’s latest animated sequel, Sing 2, proves that even with a high billing cast, you can produce a gorgeous looking film, but entirely lack substance.
During the many years I’ve reviewed films, I’m yet to be proven that Illumination Entertainment can create a single good film, and Sing was the closest I have gotten to enjoying something they produce.
With that in mind, I was hoping that Sing 2 would have given Illumination a chance to review their failures across their portfolio spanning from Despicable Me to The Secret Life of Pets and the animated How The Grinch Stole Christmas starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
Unfortunately, Sing 2 lacks all substance and as a result, is a vacuous sequel. Even with newcomer Halsey, whose previous cinematic appearance was as Wonder Woman in Teen Titans Go! to the Movies, the sequel is a disappointment to storytellers.
Showman Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) encourages his entourage of animal personalities to reform for a big hurrah in a Las Vegas performance that would give Adele or Britney a run for their money.
Buster secures a performance at a venue owned by entertainment mogul Mr Crystal (Bobby Cannavale) after the wolf equivalent of Simon Cowell overheard Gunter’s (Nick Kroll) monologue about his out-of-this-world stage show which Buster agrees to deliver, despite requiring a long-forgotten musician to return to the stage.
Buster then sends his troupe to rehearse, with each character going through their own pseudo-arc.
Johnny (Taron Egerton) learns to dance, Ash (Scarlett Johansson) digs deeper into her rock roots, Meena (Tori Kelly) discovers love and feelings, and Rosita (Reece Witherspoon) has an identity crisis with fear of being replaced.
Unfortunately, this is where the film begins to trip up.
It is clearly obvious that the producers of Sing 2 wanted to rely on Nick Kroll’s success from the Netflix show Big Mouth, as here in the sequel his excentric German-inspired pig plays a larger role.
Secondly, the aged musician, Clay Calloway, is voiced by none other than Bono from U2, with U2 hits scattered throughout the film becoming as much of a nuisance as the time they forced every Apple product to own the album Songs of Innocence.
Calloway lives grumpy and reclused, having vowed never to perform live music again after having lost his wife and muse fourteen years prior.
Though aside from a quick camera track through his house, Calloway’s motives for dismissing all music isn’t fleshed out properly.
Instead, this camera track shows a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it photo of Calloway and his wife in a wheelchair, with an open cupboard showing the folded up chair unused.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the only instance of character moments that don’t make sense for the story.
During the epilogue, Mr Crystal gets taken away by police, despite never doing any illegal activity. Instead, the rogue performers are the ones who are illegal, having been kicked out of the venue, yet storm it anyway to perform.
If this were real life, the only time we would expect performers to burst out singing randomly would be at a junction as part of the Late Night James Cordon show, which is oddly the exact tone for the film.
Overly produced, lacking all personality, and the occasional speckles of humour.
Most disappointingly though is that Mr Crystal’s daughter, Porsha (Halsey) isn’t given more of a spotlight.
Introduced when Rosita couldn’t summon the bravery to perform due to vertigo caused by a stunt, Porsha swoops in gracefully singing, replacing a character’s role, with a justifiable reason.
Any good producer would easily sack off Rosita as she’s unable to perform what’s required of her for the role.
Yet we as an audience are made to feel guilty of her for being replaced when Porscha performed, sang, and had more on-stage charisma.
Again, much like the Late Night Show with James Cordon, Sing 2 lacks charisma, and the highlights of the film, the pop-remixes of hits from Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and U2 could easily be found on YouTube afterwards.
