Sing 2 Parent Guide

After finding success in their small city, Buster Moon (voiced by Matthew McConaughey) and his crew have their eyes set on a bigger dream: performing in Redshore City (their world’s equivalent of Las Vegas). After facing a few setbacks, the team has the chance to create a show for one of the biggest producers in town. There’s just one stipulation: they must convince a reclusive rock star to come out of retirement and join them.

When Sing came out in 2016, I didn’t expect much. (Illumination is, after all, the studio that gave us Minions.)In spite of that, I loved it! It was an original story with fun characters, great jokes, and interesting musical numbers. Going into the sequel, I tried to keep my expectations under control, knowing that animated sequels are almost never as good as the original. And unfortunately, my instincts were correct. Sing 2 fails to live up to the heights of its predecessor and has nothing interesting to say.

What works with the original film is the balance between the musical numbers and the story. The songs are, for the most part, well integrated and help to establish character. In this production, the audience is bombarded with a seemingly never-ending wall of pop hits, many of which do nothing to develop either the characters or the storyline. It’s almost as if the studio gave the producers an unlimited budget for song rights but forgot to give them any money to hire writers. What results is a muddled and unfocused mess with too many characters and too long of a runtime. The story exists only to move the action from one song to another.

The screening I attended was packed with small children. Usually in that situation you can expect lots of laughter at any mildly humorous (or gross) moment. The utter silence in that theater speaks volumes to the lack of humor in this movie. There are a handful of funny moments, and a few heartwarming ones, but overall, it’s a bit of a slog to get through.

On a more cheerful note, there’s less negative content in this installment than in the previous one. The only thing concern is some mild peril related to threats the antagonist makes to Buster’s life, but that gets resolved rather quickly. Low levels of negative content are matched by muted positive messages in the narrative. There are some vague themes around hard work, persistence, and following your dreams, but they never coalesce into anything poignant or memorable. Kids will probably be entertained enough by the colorful visuals to at least sit still for a while, but parents will find little to applaud.