Here’s my film-watching confession: I’m a sucker for wacky, off-kilter supporting characters that are weird and cute. In other words, I love the Minions from Despicable Me, which makes their increased presence in Despicable Me 2 all the more welcome. (We’ll see how I respond when next year’s Minions spinoff comes out.) It’s a good thing the Minions are more key to the plot here, because Despicable Me 2‘s core story isn’t quite as creative as Despicable Me‘s was. If the first film focused in large part on the creation of a nontraditional family, the sequel tries to make that family “complete” by setting up Gru (Steve Carell) with Lucy (Kristen Wiig), an agent with the Anti-Villain League who recruits Gru to help find and stop a villain who’s stolen a mutating chemical compound. The amount of attention paid to the villainous plot is minimal: we end up getting a grand total of two suspects for the villain when an entire mall full of shopkeepers are supposed to be suspects. Still, Despicable Me 2 is a thoroughly entertaining, often hilarious film, and if nothing else, it makes next year’s Minions that much more heavily anticipated.