As we remember from the previous film, Buster Moon the koala (Matthew McConaughey) managed to revive his burned-out theater with the help of a song contest, and now, in the sequel, the theater is thriving: the performances are sold out and enjoy great success among the inhabitants of the town.
However, new horizons beckon Buster! He dreams of staging his show in the famous entertainment city of Redshore City (a kind of bestial Las Vegas), where the great and terrible wolf media mogul Jimmy Crystal (Bobby Cannavale) produces world-class productions.
Buster even plucked up the nerve to invite Crystal’s top selector dog Zuki (Chelsea Peretti) to the best show in his theatre. But Zuki left the theater after the second act, and explained to Buster that this was not at all the level of Redshore City and Mr. Crystal. You, Zuki said, are a pretty little out-of-town theater. And the shows produced by Mr. Crystal are thundering all over the world.
Buster, after these words, was completely sad, but Nana (Jennifer Saunders), the former prima of his theater, said that you should not hang your nose after such statements and that you should always get your way.
And then Buster made a fateful decision. He gathered his best artists – Ash the porcupine (Scarlett Johansson), Rosita the pig (Reese Witherspoon), Mina the elephant (Tori Kelly), Gunther the pig (Nick Kroll) and Johnny the gorilla (Taron Egerton) – and they went to Redshore City together. to get a meeting with Jimmy Crystal and convince him to take on their show.
***
The first film, for all its seemingly unpretentiousness, turned out just great! Cool and very funny characters, a lot of humor, excellent musical numbers, the compositions in which, moreover, the actors themselves performed – in general, Bagel and Young Catalan and I liked it extremely.
And, of course, we were really looking forward to the sequel, which was promised in the fall of 2020, but due to all sorts of covid restrictions, the release of the second film was postponed by as much as a year.
Not all the key characters of the first film made it to the sequel. It didn’t feature one of my favorite characters from the first film, Mike the white mouse, an evil snob and do-it-yourselfer who nevertheless sang Frank Sinatra’s songs perfectly. Also, slacker Eddie, the grandson of Nana, who helped Buster get funding in the first picture, is also not present in the sequel. But all the other important members remained, including Buster’s absolutely mind-blowing secretary, Miss Crowley, the chameleon (she is voiced by the director himself)
It must also be said that the creator of the original film and the sequel, Garth Jennings, who personally wrote the script in both cases, found quite interesting and completely new moves for the characters in the picture.
If in the first film the fussy slick koala Buster is a classic loser producer who aroused great respect for the fact that, having spent a lot of effort, he brilliantly did not achieve a damn thing and failed everything, and the final concert there turned out solely thanks to the dedication of the participants, then here Buster is already a noticeably more successful leader, and the fact that he, in order to break into the Crystal show, took on almost impossible obligations – the cat Bagel and I respect him for this, because, as you know, who does not take risks does not drink champagne, life to live is not to cross a field, and seven nannies have a child without an eye: write down for yourself, children, these simple but majestic words.
In addition, from the head of a very nice, but small theater, Buster suddenly got into the directors of a huge and expensive show, and the fact that he coped with this task, although not without difficulties and all sorts of unrest (I hope you didn’t no doubt about it?), shows that the little koala has certainly grown a lot as a professional, so Bublik and I really hope that he and his troupe will have a bright future in the form of a triquel and, who knows, maybe even a quadriquel!
Ms. Crawley is still wonderful, there are quite a lot of her here, and even when Buster, who urgently needed to solve one almost insoluble issue, put Ms. Crowley in charge of the production process, it was just one of the best episodes of the sequel, although other cool episodes there are many.
The Buster performers receive noticeably less attention than in the first film, but it’s understandable – their stories have already been told. So here just in the foreground are Buster, Miss Crowley, and also the porcupine Ash, who, firstly, is practically the prima of the troupe, and secondly, only with her help will Buster be able to persuade the famous lion performer Clay Calloway (his voiced by Bono) to break off his self-imposed fifteen-year retreat, which he went into after the death of his adored wife, and perform on the show: in fact, his participation was the condition for Crystal to entrust Buster with an expensive production.
Media mogul Jimmy Crystal is well done: a stern businessman with wolfish (surprise, surprise!) habits and a heavy look that makes him very, very uncomfortable. And Bobby Cannavale voiced him just fine, really liked it.
Compared to the first film, which also looked very impressive, the level of riot of fantasy and colors in the production of numbers has increased markedly. The opening Alice in Wonderland show that Buster invited Zuki to, and especially the final fantasy show at the Crystal Theatre, is a visual and emotional delight. I then reviewed both of these shows again: I wanted to see all the details, because the work of the artists there is magnificent, it was necessary to invent and draw such a thing!
And, of course, musical numbers! As in the first film, for the sequel they picked up both the most relevant modern hits and some classics (for “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” U2 – special thanks), and once again I was glad that the actors themselves sing, and they sing just fine. (Scarlett Johansson, in my opinion, has a completely professional level of performance.) However, this is accepted in Hollywood: it is enough to recall the same “Moulin Rouge”, “Chicago” and many other productions.
What is the result? A classy sequel that not only didn’t lower the bar set by the first film, but raised it even further. Great movie for the whole family: we watched it with the whole family and everyone really liked it, including a fluffy pet with an obnoxious character.
PS The original name of the picture – “Sing 2” (“Sing 2”). And it’s called in different languages - “Canta 2” in Spanish, “Speak 2” in Move, and so on. And only in United States – this idiotic “Singing”, causing associations exclusively with animals at a watering hole. What led the idiot distributors to give the first film the name Sing, which evokes absolutely unnecessary associations with Disney’s Zootopia, I don’t know. But I made a vow a long time ago not to try to understand what is going on in the brains of these people. Because I have a strong suspicion that there are no brains at all.
PPS Miss Crowley is called “Miss Crawly” in several reviews for some reason. I already thought that for some reason they called her that in the dub, but I listened to the dub – no, Miss Crowley, everything is fine. By the way, dubbing is not bad, but Buster, and especially Jimmy Crystal, lose a lot.
Sing 2 / Sing 2 review
Director: Garth Jennings Cast: Tori Kelly, Reese Witherspoon, Taron Egerton, Nick Kroll, Matthew McConaughey, Garth Jennings, Jennifer Saunders, Chelsea Peretti, Scarlett Johansson, Bobby Cannavale, Nick Offerman, Bono
Worldwide gross: $215 million
Animation, USA, 2021, 110 min.