Sing 2

I’ll be honest, going into Sing 2, I hadn’t actually seen Sing. I figured I wouldn’t need to have seen the original in order to see its sequel. I was right, of course. Although many of the same characters appear, Sing 2 is pretty much its own contained story. (I did watch Sing over the weekend in order to write this review with full knowledge of the franchise and, boy, was that one a stinker.)

I can happily report that the animated singing animals sequel is a hell of a lot better than the first one. Which, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t saying that much. In this one, theatre-loving koala Buster Moon’s (McConaughey) new show palace is going gangbusters. It’s had a lot of success but Buster being Buster, it’s not enough, and when he’s told he’ll never make it in Redshore City (essentially Vegas), Moon gets the old gang back together in order to travel to there to audition for lupine Jimmy Crystal (Cannavale). They fail but one of the friends pitches this wild, never-in-a-million-years spec script they’ve written and Crystal loves it. He tells them to have the show ready for him in three weeks. The gang prepares the show and hi-larity ensues.

Well, maybe not hi-larity, but you get the point.

Sing 2 is better than the original. I wasn’t actively hate-watching this one. These jukebox musical movies are all “Let’s cram in as many hit songs as possible and hope they are songs that everyone will still love cos by the time this gets released it’s 18 months later.” It’s fine. It’s serviceable. The voice acting is good, as in no one is just sleepwalking through their lines like happens in many star-driven animated projects (I’m looking directly at you, again, What If…?). I’ll be honest, I didn’t even realize it was McConaughey and Johansson as Moon and punk rock porcupine Ash until I saw the credits. Not sure if that’s a testament to their acting abilities (it isn’t) or because I didn’t really even care to figure it out (it was).

Look, does it really even matter what I say about Sing 2 in the end? I don’t think so. Wanna know why? It’s because you parents out there with kids at home for the next couple of weeks, you’re going to be forced to take them to see it sometime over Christmas break. So all you want to know is, will you gladly be ready to eat one of your own in order to get out of the theatre faster, right? Rest assured, kiddies, the adults in your life will not want to eat you.

At least, not this time.