Western Animation / Despicable Me 2

Spoilers for Despicable Me will be unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

"As an ex-villain, you know how a villain thinks, how a villain acts."

Gru: Okay, now for the announcement: I have accepted a new job!
Margo: Whoa! Really?
Gru: Yes, I have been recruited by a top secret agency to go undercover and save the world!
Edith: You're gonna be a spy?!
Gru: That's right, baby! Gru's back in the game! With the gadgets and the weapons and cool car! The whole deal!
Edith: Awesome!
Agnes: Are you really gonna save the world?
Gru: Yes. Yes, I am.

The 2013 sequel to Universal and Illumination Entertainment's Despicable Me once again follows Gru (Steve Carell), along with his three adopted girls Margo, Edith and Agnes (Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier and Elsie Fisher respectively), and the Minions (Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud).

Gru teams up with secret agent Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig) to track down a villain attempting to destroy the world. Gru must get into touch with his inner villain if he has any hope of defeating this ruthless mastermind, even though all he wants to do is settle down with his kids and make jam and jelly on the side. Things get tricky as his Minions start disappearing and he has a horrible flashback to his childhood. He also starts falling for the Fiery Redhead Lucy.

A prequel/spinoff feature film titled Minions starring the little yellow henchmen was released on July 10, 2015. Minions: The Rise of Gru was released on July 1, 2022.

Another sequel, titled Despicable Me 3, was released on June 30, 2017.

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Despicable Me 2 provides examples of:

Tropes A-E

• 21-Gun Salute: Gru honors Dr. Nefario's years of service with a 21 fart gun salute (although one of the minions makes it 22).
• 555: Averted with Lucy's business card that features a real working phone number that, when actually dialed, goes to her voicemail.
• Accidental Pervert: Accidentally invoked by Gru. Causing this by accident to another man while he was looking at his and Lucy's next suspect.
• Acrofatic: though noticeably less buff than he was in his younger days, El Macho is still remarkably nimble, especially when using his lair's dancepad combination lock.
• Action Girl: Lucy.
• Actor Allusion:
  • One of the Amusing Injuries inflicted on Gru by the boobytrapped Supervillain Lair is a dart through the nose, very similar to what happened with Maxwell Smart.
  • Gru is also a middle-aged virgin and then gets married at the end of the film, also similar to Andy Stitzer.
• Agents Dating: Felonious Gru and Lucy Wilde out to save the world. They do so, fall in love while doing so, and after 147 dates get married.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Spanish version has Gru, mi villano favorito by Xuso Jones.
• Amusing Injuries:
  • Gru's annoying (and unwanted) date Shannon gets put through quite a bit of hilarious abuse once Lucy starts interfering.
  • Gru himself then sustains some later on when he tries to break into the secret lair of El Macho near the end of the film.
• And the Adventure Continues: Auditions for "The Minion Movie" are held during the credits.
• Animal Testing: The rabbit in the Arctic base is the test subject for the PX-41 serum. It doesn't turn out well for the scientists.
• Apocalyptic Log: The video of the testing of the PX-41 serum feels like this, especially since it ends with the test subject attacking the scientists, then turning on the cameraman.
• Apologetic Attacker: Lucy apologizes to Dave the Minion for roughing him up when she thought he was an enemy.
• Armor-Piercing Question: When Gru is devastated over Lucy's departure, his youngest daughter Agnes snaps him out of it:
  Agnes: Is there anything I could do to help?
  Gru: Aw, I don't ... I don't think so, sweetheart.
  Agnes: Well, is there anything you could do?
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Nefario tells Gru that the offer of employment he has been offered offers a bigger lab than Gru's, more evil, and full dental. Said offer of employment was from El Macho.
• Ascended Extra: Agnes.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The Chip Hat given to Gru at the Cinco de Mayo party, as explored by Binging with Babish. A sombrero made out of tortilla chip sounds like a fun way to enjoy a snack without having to actually carry it around, and while Andrew does proclaim it's quite a fun dish, he does note it fits awkwardly due to not designing it specifically for his head, the wearer is basically blind when it comes to trying to scoop guacamole out of it, and that the structural integrity of the hat preventing the guac from spilling is a concern. Not to mention that his hat is of a far narrower brim than the movie's version, which could possibly have further structure or weight issues.
• Awkward Poetry Reading: The youngest of the three sisters, Agnes, who apparently doesn't remember their mom, has to recite a poem for her school's Mother's Day program and is dreading it. While practicing with Gru, she speaks in a monotone with a completely blank look on her face. He asks her to try it again with more feeling. She agrees, but it comes out *exactly* the same. At the end of the film though, she happily recites a slightly modified version at Gru and Lucy's wedding, with a look of love in her eyes.
• "Back to Camera" Pose: The poster features reformed supervillain Gru overlooking a plain full of his Minions, establishing that he's a slick man with authority. And since the first film ended with his reform, the pose leaves what he's planning up to interpretation.
• Badass Biker: Gru on his monstrous chopper.
• Badass Family: By the end Gru, the girls, and Nefario rank right up there with the Parrs. The family becomes even more awesome with the addition of Lucy into the Gru family.
• Badass in Distress: Lucy near the end of the film.
• Badge Gag: When Lucy first meets Gru, she shows her Anti-Villain Group ID badge upside down. She corrects it immediately upon noticing.
• Bait-and-Switch: It looks like Gru is talking to Lucy on the phone when he wants to ask her on a date, but it turns out he's merely psyching himself up to do it and is actually talking to a minion. He can't bring himself to actually do it and resorts to melting the phone with a flamethrower.
• Bathos: There are two scenes of characters sitting around, depressed for good reason...wearing nacho hats full of guacamole, which they are slowly eating.
• Beak Attack: Gru and Lucy sneak into Eduardo's restaurant looking for evidence that he's master criminal El Macho. Once inside they are met with Eduardo's guard... chicken, who ferociously pecks at Gru's head.
• Berserk Button:
  • Agnes' stuffed unicorn. She'll scream loud enough to shatter glass. This happened when an Evil Minion (Kevin) attempted to eat her stuffed unicorn right in front of her.
  • Gru's obnoxious date, Shannon, really doesn't like phonies.
• Big Eater: Agnes, apparently, as when Gru and the girls arrive at the Cinco de Mayo party, Gru tells her to go easy on the churros.
• Big Fancy House: Despite it being far too big for the peak it's built on (part of it extends off the top and is supported by beams) Eduardo's hacienda is this.
• Big "WHAT?!": Gru in mid-sentence when he's told he's been signed up for online dating by the girls.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Agnes compares Gru's head to an egg. Eduardo calls Gru "Cabeza de Huevo" (head-of-eggs).
  • El Pollito is "The Small Chicken."
  • One of the minions also continues this trend with the minions from the first film and says "Kampai" to a robotic arm while raising his glass, which is Japanese for "Cheers!" Another one also yells "No mas!" at a clamoring crowd of other minions, Spanish for "No more!" The minions also chase an ice cream truck while shouting, "Gelato!"
• Bishie Sparkle: A non-romantic case, when Agnes first sees Lucy.
• Black-Hole Belly: Minions who have been treated with the PX-41 mutagen have this power. One is shown to eat a police car and even a nuclear bomb with no ill effects.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Edith is blonde, Margo and Agnes are brunettes, and Lucy is redhead.
• Body Horror: The effects of PX-41 greatly increases the body, turns them entirely bluish-purple, and causes all hair to become long and frizzy. It also increases aggression, as the rabbit attacking the scientists demonstrated.
• Booby Trap:
  • Played for Laughs. Lucy tried to warn Gru that Eduardo might have one. Gru dismisses this because they're in a restaurant. Not a second later, Lucy turned out to be right — it was a simple tripwire that rang a bell. Turns out, it was to let El Pollito know there were intruders.
  • Ditto for the entrance to the lair. In order to gain access, one must take steps on a grid of tiles, each one of which plays a specific musical note; if the steps are done in the correct sequence, the result is the Mexican standard "La Cucaracha" and access to the lair. A single misstep will trigger any one of several booby traps — all of which are far deadlier than the one that summons Pollito.
• Book Ends:
  • A celebration is held outside with a cake being present. The first is at Agnes's birthday party and the second is at Gru and Lucy's wedding.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted. After El Macho downs the PX-41 serum and mutates into a monster, Gru goes to fire the two jelly guns he has containing the antidote at him, only to find both guns empty.
• Brain Bleach:
  • The girls looking through photos of Gru get this when they come across one of him in nothing but a pair of speedos.
  • When Gru looks at Lucy's insides with the X-ray goggles, he reacts in horror and regrets he won't forget it.
  • A Shout-Out to Jaws reveals a skinny-dipping Minion's butt.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The Minions get kidnapped by El Macho and mutated to work for him. They even get new looks which are purple, wear a different variation of their overalls with El Macho's logo on it instead of Gru's and have clown hair. Gru's reaction to seeing one of them for the first time says a thousand words.
• Brick Joke:
  • When Gru turns down Silas and is forced to leave the AVL lair without Lucy's sub-boat, he's forced to use a rowboat. At the end of the movie, Lucy and Gru are stuck treading water in the sea - cue the Minions passing by in the same rowboat.
  • El Macho's Establishing Character Moment involves him ordering 200 cupcakes with the Mexican flag on them at Gru's bakery. Near the end of the film, Doctor Nefario is briefly seen with a cupcake in hand that fits the description perfectly.
• Brief Accent Imitation: Lucy tries out an Australian accent at one point.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Gru and Lucy fit this trope fairly well in the beginning.
• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Gru has become one by this film, and is especially nervous about Margo taking an interest in dating and boys.
• Cake Toppers: Briefly seen at the wedding. Right before Gru and Lucy are revealed, there are miniature versions of themselves seen on top of their wedding cake.
• Call-Back:
  • Gru stealing the moon is brought up twice, first by Ramsbottom and later by El Macho.
  • The fart gun and the freeze ray both play important roles.
  • In the credits, the Minions stand on a plain white background doing things that utilize the 3D of the film, just like the original.
  • In the first film, Gru sounds unsure when he introduces Kyle as a dog, and then says he has no idea what breed he's supposed to be. In this one, one of Lucy's gadgets identifies Kyle as simply "Species: Unknown."
  • Possibly. El Macho's faked death involved riding a shark into an active volcano with 250 pounds of dynamite strapped to his chest, and he intends to kill Lucy in the same way at the end. In the first film, Vector owned a shark, which was housed in a tank in his living room floor.
• Calling Your Attacks: Deconstructed, Reconstruction, inverted, parodied, lampshaded, and Played for Laughs, all at the exact same time. When Gru announces his freeze ray before unleashing it, Lucy is quick to counter by silently using a flamethrower on it. She then tells him it's better to announce weapons after firing them, before proceeding to demonstrate by using a lipstick taser on him.
  • Also becomes a subtle sign of Character Development later when Gru stops doing it.
• Car Fu: Lucy hits Gru when kidnapping him by backing her car into him. Later Eduardo gets run over as well when Gru and Lucy are attempting to escape his restaurant.
• Carpet of Virility: El Macho had a pretty impressive one, and all that was found of his body was a clump of it (but oddly, somehow the tattoo of the Mexican Flag disappears out from under it).
• Cat Scare: Two minions are trying to play golf in the house when they hear a noise outside. They slowly walk outside and walk towards the trash cans, golf club raised and scary music in the background. Then a cat jumps out of the trash can.
• The Cavalry: Dr. Nefario, the girls, and the unmutated Minions arrive just in time to save Gru from the Mutated!Minions about to eat him.
• The Cameo: Gru's mother has a non-speaking cameo at the wedding.
• Chekhov's Gun: The jelly and the lipstick tazer.
  • Oddly, this movie actually uses a few unfired Chekhov's Guns that were introduced in the first movie. Fart gun, anyone?
• Comically Missing the Point: When Dr. Nefario complains that he misses being evil.
  Dr. Nefario: Don't you think there's more to our future than jelly?
  Gru: Well, I'm also considering a line of jams.
• Comic Role Play: Gru practices asking Lucy out on a Minion dressed as her, but his romantic performance is so pathetic that even the Minion rejects him.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Lucy ends up ordering takeout at the exact same restaurant Gru and Shannon were having their date.
  • Dr. Nefario's new employer happens to be El Macho.
• Cool Bike: Turns out, Gru owns not only massive rocket-powered, steel-clad "cars" and gunships, but also a huge chopper of similar design. We get to see him unleash his inner Badass Biker on it late into the movie.
• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: Just eyes in this case. When trying to find a suitable picture of Gru for a dating profile, the girls come across one of a sunburned Gru on the beach, wearing only a pair of speedos. Margo covers Agnes's eyes in horror.
• Coy, Girlish Flirt Pose: After Lucy gives Gru a business card, she looks to be doing this, even possibly looking at him with a flirtful eye, when she turns to leave.
• Crazy-Prepared: When the fairy princess doesn't show up for Agnes' birthday party, Gru fills in for her with his own fairy princess costume. And it fits perfectly, to boot.
• Creepy Monotone: Agnes recites her lines for the Mother's Day pageant in this method.
  Gru: Let's try this one more time, but a teensy bit less like a zombie, okay?
• Daddy's Little Villain: Gru thinks Antonio is this. He isn't. He's a Kidanova, much to Margo's dismay.
• Dance Battler: Lucy claims to use a hybrid martial art partially inspired by krumping. A slight Actor Allusion to Kristin Wiig, who had several characters on Saturday Night Live that incorporated krumping.
• Dance of Romance: Antonio and Margo at the Cinco de Mayo Party. Becomes a subversion when Antonio leaves Margo for another girl.
• Dance Party Ending: At Gru and Lucy's wedding, several minions, dressed as the members of the Village People, sing a Minionese version of Y.M.C.A.
• Dancing Mook Credits: The Minions do this twice at the end, once to a Minionese version of "I Swear" by All 4 One, and then again to "Y.M.C.A." Complete with Kevin and several other Minions dressed in costume, and Stuart rocking a "Gru-Ray" DJ board and monitors.
• Darker and Edgier: Surprisingly. Never Say "Die" is averted multiple times, and the villain's plans for global domination are to set the Brainwashed and Crazy minions (who are turned into Omnicidal Maniacs as a result of the PX-41 serum) onto the major continents if the world's leaders don't hand over control to him. And he wants Gru to help him.
• Date Peepers: Lucy spies on Gru and his date with Shannon after she spots him in a restaurant she was getting takeout from. Fortunately for her it's going badly and Gru was looking for an excuse to get out of it.
• Death Glare:
  • Stuart has an expression like this when looking at Gru when he's psyching himself up to call Lucy.
  • Margo to Gru when she sees him shaking Antonio at the Cinco de Mayo party.
  • Margo again towards Antonio when Gru leads her away after seeing Antonio dancing with another girl.
  • Gru when on his way to rescue Lucy from El Macho.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Edith, she and her sisters are Out of Focus in this movie, but she gets it worst given she has the least characterization of them.
  • Gru's Mother gets this even worse, as she shows up as a bust and at the wedding in a non-speaking cameo.
  • Dr. Nefario.
• Dinky Drivers: Two of Gru's minions drive Lucy's car to rescue them when their break-in goes awry.
• Distress Ball: Despite Lucy's well established status as an Action Girl, she gets captured by El Macho almost effortlessly.
• Dodgy Toupee: Gru wears one on his bad date, only for it to get knocked off. Lucy later tells him she liked him better bald.
• Drives Like Crazy: Everyone. The first protagonist we see behind a wheel is Lucy, who rampages through the streets with total disregard for anyone's safety before she drives her car straight into a busy pedestrian area without batting an eyelash, smashing furniture and forcing startled people to dive for cover left and right. Then we have the minions driving the very same car which, considering their short stature, goes about as well as you'd expect. Finally, a bad-tempered Gru drives his daughters to the Cinco de Mayo party and predictably wrecks half a dozen cars in the process of "parking" his smoke-belching Diesel Punk monster on wheels. His arrival back home some minutes later then involves another parking maneouvre that would give any driving instructor nightmares.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Gru's description of El Macho's death, "in the most macho way possible" - to wit, jumping out of a plane, riding on the back of a shark, with 250 pounds of dynamite strapped to his chest, and popping the pins on a live grenade in each hand, while plunging into the maw of an active volcano. Averted, since it turns out El Macho faked his death.
• Easily Forgiven: Dr. Nefario
• Eat the Bomb: When Eduardo introduces the evil minions for the first time, a brief Indestructibility Montage ensues, including the minion eating a nuclear bomb.
• Eerie Arctic Research Station: The movie opens on one such station, which is then stolen by the Big Bad. Stolen as in the entire facility is lifted off the ground and hauled away.
• Elaborate Underground Base: El Macho is revealed to have one when Gru follows him at the Cinco de Mayo Party.
• Empathic Environment:
  • After Lucy kisses Gru goodnight after his date with Shannon, the weather is sunny and the lighting is bright. When Gru is glumly walking home after finding Lucy is transferring to Australia, the lighting is dull and the sky is overcast. It's then raining in the next scene when Gru is sadly sitting alone on the doorstep.
  • It's also a nice sunny day during the wedding at the end.
• Establishing Character Moment: When Lucy first meets Gru, she greets him with a cheery "Hi!", then initially presents her ID badge upside-down (before flipping it the right way up), before seriously telling Gru he has to go with her. Gru tries to use his freeze ray on her, only for Lucy to counter it with her flamethrower, tell him it's better to call his attacks after performing them, then uses her lipstick taser on him, calling the attack while it's happening. This scene shows that while Lucy is a Genki Girl, she's also a skilled agent.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Implied with Eduardo, as the picture in his restaurant kitchen hiding the safe shows him with an old woman with white hair and sunglasses, presumably his mother.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Eduardo has his son, Antonio. And, according to a photo in his restaurant kitchen, also his mother.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Dr. Nefario warns Gru about El Macho holding Lucy hostage as well as saving the girls from the evil minion El Macho let loose on them. He is otherwise perfectly fine with going along with El Macho's plan of terrorizing the planet.
  • An inversion with the AVL; a global organization taking on global evil and they have things that are too petty for them to take care of; for instance, robbing a bank or murdering a man.
• Evil Minions: Literally (after being injected with the PX-41 Serum of course).
• Eye Scream: Gru's third attempt to kiss Lucy at their wedding sees him accidentally poke her in the eye with his nose.

Tropes F-J

• Faceplanting into Food:
  • Shannon is about to expose Gru as bald, but Lucy comes in and shoots her in the ass with a tranquilizer dart, causing her to pass out right into her plate of spaghetti. Later, she briefly wakes up and groans like a moose before putting her head down again.
  • When Eduardo performs a salsa dance for his restaurant patrons, three lovestruck women faint, face-planting into their food.
• Faking the Dead: Gru insists that El Macho, despite having gone down into a volcano while riding on a shark with tons of dynamite, is still alive. He turns out to be right.
• Fat and Skinny: Gru and Lucy.
• Faux Shadow: At the party at the start Edith is shown on monkey bars dodging spears and spikes. One would expect this to come to fruition later in the film, possibly during a climactic scene, but no such luck.
• Fireworks of Love: In Dave's imagination, he and Lucy shoot off fireworks from their missile launchers before kissing.
• Fitness Nut: Gru gets fixed up on a blind date with a health nut who refers to herself in the third person. She says, "Fitness is *very important* to Shannon," and proceeds to do sit ups while they're waiting for their meal in a fancy restaurant.
• Food as Bribe: When an ice cream truck approaches Gru's house, several of his minions rush towards it to buy some. It starts kidnapping them, but one manages to evade capture. But then the ice cream truck holds out a popsicle in front, which he licks, gets stuck to it, and is captured that way.
• Foot Popping:
  • Lucy does this when she and Gru use a grappling hook to try and get to her car (driven by Dave and Stuart) while escaping from Eduardo's restaurant.
  • Lucy did it earlier when she zapped Gru with her lipstick taser.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When Gru decides to take Lucy up on her offer to locate the PX-41 serum, he remarks to the girls that he will save the world. He does, in more ways than one, when almost all of the Minions are mutated by the serum, he and the girls turn them back to normal before they can be launched at the world's major cities.
  • After the girls meet Lucy, Agnes asks Gru "Are you gonna marry Lucy?" One guess on what happens at the end of the film.
  • Agnes reciting her Mother's Day poem to Gru, laments that she doesn't feel she can do it because she doesn't have a mother. This likely explains why, of the girls, she is the biggest Shipper on Deck for Gru and Lucy after they meet her. And then, at the end, Agnes recites her poem again, now compelled to do it because she now has a new mother in the form of Lucy.
  • Gru mentions of how he doesn't trust Antonio when the former tries to convince Silas to arrest the latter. He wasn't wrong. It turned out that Antonio was a player.
  • A subtle one. At Agnes' sixth birthday party at the start of the movie, when Gru is dressed as a fairy and a girl asks him "How come you're so fat?", he answers "Because my house is made of candy, and sometimes I eat instead of facing my problems." At the Cinco de Mayo party at the end of Act 2, Gru is seen wearing a chip hat; Eduardo states (and the directors' commentary confirms) that he was given it because he is lonely, and might need to "drown [his] sorrows in guacamole". (A little later, Margo is given one because Antonio dumped her.)
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Averted. The epilogue specifically states that Gru and Lucy go on a total of 147 more dates before they get married.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: One of the zoom-ins on Gru's phone before he incinerates it, shows next to the emergency call number (labeled 'Mother') are two yellow buttons reading "Dave" and "Stuart".
• Freeze Ray: Shows up again, with Lucy commenting to Gru how Calling Your Attacks before you make them is a bad idea.
• French Maid: One of the Minions, Tom, is dressed as this.
• Funny Background Event:
  • Any time the screen pans on a lot of minions, keep a close eye out on the ones in the background.
  • As Jillian is talking to Gru at Agnes's party, behind Jillian Natalie can be seen getting up after the table collapses under her, walking uneasily away, then a girl throws a drink at her, knocking her into another table, which also collapses.
• A Glass in the Hand: Gru crushes a glass in his hand when he sees the smooth-talking charmer Antonio dancing with Margo at Salsa and Salsa.
• Glass-Shattering Sound: Agnes screaming.
• The Goggles Do Nothing: Bob's blowing bubbles gets in Kevin's eyes despite him wearing the usual minion goggles.
• Good is Not Nice:
  • The Anti-Villain League are pretty darn cold when it comes to the greater good. Kill a guy? Eh, too small time for them. Steal the moon? Now you have their attention. Might be justified, as "Villains" in this setting are so common that they have their own bank (from the first film), and need an entire agency dedicated specifically and solely to countering them.
  • Gru, while a good guy, and kind to his daughters and those he cares for, retains a healthy amount of his villainous pragmatism.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: When Gru is looking in the wall in Floyd's store for the serum, Floyd shouts "Iri wa!" (Korean for "Come here!") to get his attention. Possibly also an example of Poirot Speak.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: Averted in regards to Gru's theft of the Moon in the previous movie, as while it was a mystery for the general public to who stole it, the AVL acknowledge him for the caper. It also appears to have reached the villain circles too, as El Macho knows he did it as well and looks up to him because of it.
• Groin Attack: When Gru tried to get Antonio away from Margo, Antonio retorted by kicking Gru's "most sensitive part".
• Guilt by Coincidence: Subverted. Gru finds traces of the serum in Floyd's wig store, but is convinced Eduardo and Antonio are the culprits because his judgement is clouded by his hatred of Antonio. He's wrong about Antonio being involved, but not about Eduardo.
• Gun Fu: Gru does this briefly in the last battle. The scene even slows down to make it more melodramatic.
• Gunship Rescue: Towards the end of the movie, Gru and two minions are rescued from a bunch of evil minions from a rooftop by plane armed with jelly-miniguns.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: One of Gru's minions engages in this with a crazed minion. It blows his cover as a result.
• Happily Married: Gru and Lucy in the end.
• Harmless Freezing: One of Gru's regular attacks.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Dr. Nefario joins with El Macho so he can do evil deeds once again, but when he learns that El Macho is holding Lucy hostage as well as learned of the evil minion El Macho let loose on the girls, he returns to Gru.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": The two Minions who end up at the AVL with Gru and Lucy (probably Dave and Stuart) have this reaction after hearing Silas Ramsbottom's name.
• Heroes Gone Fishing:
  • Gru and the girls do this at the beginning at Agnes's birthday party. Margo, Edith and Agnes do this later at the mall when Margo meets Antonio.
  • As Gru and Shannon are having their date, Lucy arrives at the same restaurant to pick up some takeout.
  • Gru and the girls attending the Cinco de Mayo party at Eduardo's hacienda. That is, up until Gru follows Eduardo and discovers he is indeed El Macho.
• Hollywood Kiss: Adorably averted during the wedding. Gru and Lucy try to kiss several times but their noses keep getting in the way. Eventually they figure it out.
• Horrifying the Horror: Gru's weird mutant dog Kyle usually freaks out everyone who encounters him the first time; in the first film even Gru himself was wary around his pet. Then Mutant!Kevin shows up at Gru's house and makes Kyle flee for his life the moment they lay eyes on each other.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: While Lucy is taller than Gru, he's far more built than she is.
• If It Swims, It Flies: Lucy's car can transform into both a submarine and a jet plane.
• I Have Your Wife: A variant. El Macho captures Lucy and uses her as leverage to get Gru to cooperate with him. In a subversion of the trope, it's actually Dr. Nefario who warns Gru behind El Macho's back, as opposed to El Macho gloating about it.
• Imagine Spot:
  • Minion Dave imagines a Falling-in-Love Montage with Lucy, which cuts back to reality when Gru tries to get his attention.
  • When Eduardo pokes his head back into Bake My Day, Gru imagines seeing him in his El Macho garb surrounded by flames.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: Right after Gru says that they can't prove that he tried to steal the moon, he adds that he put it back immediately.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Reverting the Evil Minions to Minions relies entirely on Gru firing the antidote jelly into their mouths Guns Akimbo even. And in Bullet Time! May be justified as the speed at which they take effect may mean that skin contact can still work.
• Indecipherable Lyrics: At Gru and Lucy's wedding, minions sing "I Swear" (as if they were All-4-One) and "YMCA" (dressed like the Village People).
• Indestructibility Montage: When Eduardo introduces the first evil purple minion, the minion is shown to be able to be able to take all kinds of abuse. He is subject to machine gun fire, a flamethrower, an axe, a nuclear bomb, and a police car. He come out unscathed, even eating the latter three.
• Instant Sedation: During the meal, Shannon notices Gru's wig and is about to humiliate him when Lucy, visiting the restaurant herself, renders Shannon instantly unconscious with a Tranquillizer Dart.
• Jerkass: Silas Ramsbottom. In addition to the fact his whole organization embodies Good is Not Nice, he repeatedly makes fun of Gru's business-attempts and is really callous and flippant towards him.
• Jerk Jock: Shannon is crazy about fitness, mocks Gru's accent and almost humiliates Gru during their date by attempting to remove his wig. Luckily, Lucy was ready to stop that from happening.

Tropes K-O

• Kick the Dog:
  • Unintentional, but Silas really put The Woobie status on Gru when the former informed the latter that Lucy would be reassigned to Australia after the case was supposedly solved. Then, he coldly dismisses him.
  • Thanks to the above, Gru performs a number of them to the some of the same strangers he gave a Pet the Dog moment to earlier.
• KidAnova: Antonio turns out to be one of these (he even provides the page image), much to Margo's sadness. Luckily Gru had the freeze ray with which to release his Papa Wolf.
• Kids Are Cruel:
  • In one of Gru's childhood flashbacks, a young Gru was rejected by the children of his school, even by his first crush. In fact, to them being touched or near Gru would put them at 'risk' of getting 'Gruties'.
  • Combined with Funny Background Event, where after Natalie has already caused a table to collapse at Agnes's party, a girl throws a drink at her, knocking her into another table, which collapses too.
• Kidnapped by an Ally: Gru is tasered and stuffed into the back AVL Agent Lucy Wilde's car and taken under sea. Why? To recruit him to help the AVL track down the criminal responsible for taking the dangerous PX-41. Gru points out that he owns a telephone: they could have just called.
• Killer Rabbit: The chicken puts up quite a fight. And there's a Hair-Raising Hare that's a test subject for the PX-41 serum.
• Laugh of Love:
  • In an Imagine Spot, Dave imagines having a love life with Lucy, and one of the scenes in said Imagine Spot involves them running along a beach while laughing.
  • Margo giggles nervously when Antonio sweeps her off her feet on their first meeting.
  • At their wedding, Gru and Lucy are laughing while dancing together.
• Little "No": Gru lets one one out as El Macho is about to press the button to set off the rocket and kill Lucy.
• Love at First Sight: Margo for Antonio, one of the Minions for Lucy. Also Agnes for Lucy, in a parent-child sense.
• Love Epiphany: One of the oddest and funniest ever, by Lucy. She imagines Gru's face in a magazine and in several of her fellow passengers on the plane to Australia before snapping back to reality. She decides to bail out of the plane so she can be with him.
• Love Interests: Gru to Lucy and Margo to Antonio.
• Made of Iron: The minions, so much that the serum makes them Nigh Invulnerable.
• Magic Pants: Averted with Eduardo/El Macho's Super Mode, since all his clothing gets ripped off. Luckily, he gets furry enough to cover his censorable areas. Played straight with the minions, though. On the other hand, the serum doesn't make them grow more than marginally bigger.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Lucy is the fun-loving, enthusiastic, slapstick character that gives contrast to Gru's grumbling, cranky practical joker.
• Masked Luchador: Eduardo's villainous identity is obviously inspired in Mexican masked wrestlers.
• Matchmaker Failure: Jillian is constantly trying to set Gru up with women. He eventually goes on a date with her friend Shannon. However, the two have vastly different personalities. Not to mention, Shannon gets angry at the fact Gru is wearing a wig, as she thinks it means he's a "phony". It goes so poorly that Gru's love interest Lucy has to shoot Shannon with a Tranquilizer Dart to get Gru out of it.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • Agnes reciting her poem to Gru. The first time she does it, it's with a blank expression and said in a monotone voice, because she doesn't feel like she can properly do it on account of not actually having a mother. Agnes recites the poem again at the end at the wedding, and does it much better because now she does have a mother.
  • When Gru first meets Lucy when she kidnaps him to recruit him for the AVL, he attempts to use his freeze ray on her, giving his signature shout of "Freeze Ray!" but she instantly counters that with a flamethrower, giving no reaction. She then advises Gru to announce his weapons after he fires them before using her lipstick taser on him with a lovely shout of "Lipstick taser!" Later, in the final battle, when none of Gru's weapons are working on El Macho's mutated form, he then spots the lipstick taser in his coat pocket and uses it on El Macho, defeating him in an instant.
  Gru: Lipstick taser!
  Lucy: Aw, he copied me.
• Miming the Cues: Gru tries to get out of a date he doesn't want by trying to get Agnes to pretend he isn't there.
  Jillian: Agnes, where's Gru?
  Agnes: He's... (Gru tries to make her stop talking by zipping his lips) putting on lipstick! (waves his hands) He's... swatting flies! (gestures across his neck) He's... chopping his head off! (clenches his fists in frustration) He's.... pooping?
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Eduardo/El Macho is taller in a flashback. Justified as Gru could have been imagining him as larger than life.
• Missed Him by That Much: After her Love Epiphany, Lucy arrives at the Cinco de Mayo party Gru and the girls were attending about two seconds after they drive off.
• Mobile Shrubbery: Some minions move around at the mall hidden inside trash bins.
• More Dakka: Used in the final fight of the film, where the girls and other minions fire jellied antidotes at the crazy minions to revert them back to normal.
• Nerves of Steel: Lucy, while she's strapped to the rocket, along with a shark and a series of explosives, says she's been through worse. She subverts it later when she says she's actually freaking out inside.
• Never Found the Body: El Macho is said to have died by riding a shark into an active volcano with 250 pounds of dynamite strapped to his chest, leaving behind a single pile of singed chest hair. It turns out to have been faked.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • The first trailer to feature Lucy made her out to be a much more serious character than she really is.
  • Also, Al Pacino being advertised as a cast member in the film, even though he dropped out in post-production.
• Sombrero Equals Mexican: Agnes wears a sombrero to the Cinco de Mayo Party. Also at the party, the chip hat (a sombrero made out of nacho-chip material, the brim filled with guacamole) given to Gru at that party, and later to Margo. The directors' commentary states that these two got given chip hats because they were lonely.
• Not Quite Dead: El Macho.
• Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: There is a pretty curious case of this with the Polish version of the movie. For the first movie, they came up with the idea to translate the title as "Jak Ukraść Księżyc" ("How To Steal The Moon"), presumably because they weren't expecting a sequel to come out. But sure enough, a sequel did come out, and it seemed that they would be forced to translate it as "How To Steal The Moon 2", making it a pretty heavy case of an Artifact Title. What they did instead? They translated the sequel's title as "Minionki Rozrabiają" ("Minions Cause Mayhem"). It makes you wonder what are they going to do with the upcoming Minion movie.
  • Apparently, calling it "How To Keep A Crazed Lucha Wrestler From Tying Your Potential Girlfriend To A Shark And Firing The Shark Into A Volcano" would have given too much away.
  • Also, why didn't they just translate the first movie as "Nikczemny Ja" (a more direct translation of "Despicable Me") is anyone's guess.
  • Might be a Shout-Out to a Polish movie "O dwóch takich, co ukradli Księżyc" (Those Two Guys Who Stole The Moon). And "Ja, nikczemnik" would sound better anyway.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • At Agnes's party, Natalie gets this as she realises the table she's leaning against is about to collapse.
  • Tom when he answers the door to an unseen character Dr. Nefario who then grabs him.
  • When Gru and Lucy are at risk of being discovered by Eduardo for breaking in and searching his restaurant for the PX-41 serum (and snacking on his secret salsa in the process).
  • Gru has one while hiding in a recycling bin and seeing that a man is about to put a hot cup of coffee in it.
  • After seeing Tom become an Evil Minion when he's injected with the serum, Kevin has one as he is also injected with it.
  • Lucy when Eduardo sees her AVL ID and recognizes her as one of the two who were trying to bring him down.
  • Later, Gru when El Macho drinks the serum and transforms. Then he has another one when he tries to shoot El Macho with the antidote only to discover his two guns are empty.
  • Two more: When Gru thinks he is about to be devoured by the Evil Minions (but is saved by Nefario), and when he sees Lucy tied up to the shark and rocket.
  • Finally, Gru and Lucy when they realise Pollito is about to launch the rocket Lucy is strapped to.
    Gru: I really hate that chicken.
• One-Handed Shotgun Pump: Gru does two during the climax with Guns Akimbo.
• One-Winged Angel: After the Brainwashed and Crazy minions are reverted back to their normal selves, El Macho uses the PX-41 serum on himself against Gru, turning into a giant hairy purple monster.
• Overly Long Gag: Dr. Nefario flying out of Gru's lair.
  Dr. Nefario: Goodbye my friends... This may take a while... Go about your business... I miss you already!

Tropes P-T

• Pair the Spares:
  • In the final scene, Silas (Lucy's boss at the AVL) is dancing with Natalie, one of the women Gru's neighbor Jillian tried to set him up with at the start of the film.
  • Dr. Nefario dances with Gru's mother in much the same way.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Normal Minions just need body paint to infiltrate the Big Bad lair as Evil Minions. In their defense, the evil Minions' shapes are very inconsistent for a clone army, and with or without the Psycho Serum, the Minions are not the brightest guys out there.
• Pet the Dog: Gru does a number of nice things to strangers after realizing he's in love with Lucy.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Gru's fairy princess dress in one scene.
• Production Foreshadowing: The Minion Movie gets a tease during the end credits.
• Psycho Serum: The PX-41 serum.
• Pun: Several of the restaurants in the mall have titles that are this, including Gru's cover bakery of "Bake My Day", the flower shop "Mum's The Word", and Eduardo's Mexican restaurant "Salsa and Salsa".
• Puppy Love: Margo and Antonio. It doesn't work out.
• Purple Is Powerful: PX-41 mutants turn purple.
• Recruiting the Criminal: The AVL recruit Gru to help them find the mastermind who stole the serum PX-41.
• Red Herring: Floyd, the toupee store owner.
• Red Is Heroic:
  • Inverted. Eduardo wears a red shirt, and turns out to be the Big Bad.
  • Played straight with Lucy, however, who has red hair and nails.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: So Gru, you want to go legit, good for you! With all this amazing gear you've developed you could make a killing in the tech industry — oh wait, you're going to go into the jam business? Uh, okay. Downplayed in that he still uses his factories and minions to make the jam. It's possible that he can only make gadgets to be used for villainous purposes.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Gru may have retired from villainy, but that doesn't stop him from being an occasional Jerkass verging on Good is Not Nice. He also comes off overall as an anti-hero in certain angles.
• Refusal of the Call: Gru initially rejects the offer to work with the AVL, but reluctantly accepts after Nefario quits.
• Remember the New Guy?: Gru for the major villain. Justified as he was a villain twenty years ago.
• Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: Lucy was impressed with Gru's moon theft, as was El Macho.
• Rescue Romance:
  • A parody. Lucy "saves" Gru from an obnoxious date (Shannon), which helps Gru to realize his feelings for her.
  • Also Gru finally works up the courage to ask Lucy out on a date after he rescues her from El Macho
• Retired Badass:
  • Gru, who's trying to go straight.
  • El Macho can also count - he certainly keeps his awesome credentials with his dance moves. And that's just before The Reveal.
• Revolting Rescue: Dr. Nefario knocks a transformed El Macho out by shooting him in the face with the Fart Gun^note A gun that fires a foul-smelling gas to help Gru defeat him and save Lucy.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons:
  • Gru's insistence that El Macho is the bad guy is due more to Antonio putting the moves on Margo.
  • Gru's suspicion of Antonio himself. Gru would've been suspicious of any boy putting the moves on any of his girls; Antonio was just unlucky enough to be the first one to do it. However, while Gru didn't know this at first, there's a good reason to be suspicious of Antonio: he doesn't like Margo that much and breaks her heart later on.
• Rule of Three: At their wedding, Gru and Lucy attempt to kiss but fail three times. They get it on the fourth.
• Running Gag: Early on, one Minion gets his head stuck in a jam jar. He then makes repeat appearances throughout the film, with it still there even after being mutated, and at the wedding.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Gru and Lucy, to the hilt. He's a cold Deadpan Snarker who is a jerkass to anyone outside his family while Lucy is a peppy Genki Girl who is friendly towards everyone.
• Secret Message Wink: After saving Gru from his disastrous blind date by tranquilizing Shannon, Lucy tells him she just passed out drunk...or maybe got shot with a mild moose tranquilizer, and winks.
  Lucy: Yeah, I'm winking because that's what actually happened.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Jillian is this to Gru and pretty much anyone, even someone whose husband just died. She manages to set a reluctant Gru up on a date with Shannon, which does not go well until Lucy intervenes.
  • The girls are this for Gru as well, as they try to set him up on online dating.
• Ship Tease: Two ship teases could be seen at Gru and Lucy's wedding: Silas and Natalie (one of Jillian's friends) and Fred (Gru's friendly neighbor from the first film) and Shannon. However, the latter ship couple probably sank as Shannon became interested in another guy.
• Shoe Phone: Lucy uses gadgets like her lipstick taser.
• Shot in the Ass: Gru's date Shannon gets it from Lucy, with a dart containing a mild moose tranquilizer.
• Sigh of Love: Margo sighs happily when she first sees Antonio.
• Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Agent Lucy Wilde.
• Sky Heist: The opening scene features an entire research lab being stolen by a massive aircraft.
• Small Role, Big Impact:
  • Lisa, Gru's childhood crush, cruelly rejects him (along with the other children). This incident scarred Gru to the point he would not pursue romance.
  • Jillian, Gru's neighbor. Had it not been for insistent (and annoying) habit of trying to get Gru to go on a date, he would have never discovered his feelings for Lucy.
• Soft Water: Gru and Lucy fall from a rocket into the ocean with no injuries whatsoever. Slightly averted by the volcanic explosion slowing their fall before they reached terminal velocity.
• Songs in the Key of Lock: To gain entrance to El Macho's lair, you must play the opening notes of "La Cucaracha" on an electronic dance floor.
• Squick: In-Universe. Margo, Edith, & Agnes have a grossed out, but understandable reaction when they see a photo of Gru in his swimwear.
• Standard Female Grab Area: Justified. Agent Lucy Wilde (who can actually fight) is grabbed in this way, in the middle of a party chock full of civilians, mostly kids. And the guy who grabbed her is known for being strong. She even looks around at all the people who could potentially be collateral damage.
• Stock Scream: There's a Wilhelm scream when the base is stolen.
• Strapped to a Rocket: El Macho straps Lucy to a rocket which is also laden with explosives (and a shark) which he plans to fire into a volcano.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Gru has quit villainy to become a jelly businessman. However, becoming a successfully jelly businessman doesn't happen overnight and the first batch he creates is terrible.
  • Also, jelly that has every kind of berry in it is going to taste awful.
  • Gru is recruited by the AVL to help them catch a villain, however no one in the AVL (sans Lucy) wants to work with him because of his "checkered past". An understandable reaction since someone with a criminal history often can't be trusted.
  • Gru's suspicions over Eduardo (while right, albeit for the wrong reasons) was not warranted by Ramsbottom for two reasons — One, there was no evidence to suspect him. Two, Gru and Lucy have just found strands of the serum in Floyd's store.
  • In a refreshing way. Gru and Lucy do fall in love and get married, but more realistically with "147 dates" in between, showing kids that even what seems like a solid coupling at first glance could still use some time to mature; 147 dates is at least half a year. Plus, Lucy could become better acquainted with the girls, Minions, and Marlena.
  • Many spent the entire movie wondering how Gru and Lucy will kiss with those noses. This is delightfully lampshaded.
• Testosterone Poisoning: El Macho is described as "the manliest man ever", drinking alcohol that's labeled as poison after also forcing a snake to spit venom into it and robbing armored trucks with his bare hands. He died in the most macho way possible: riding a shark strapped with two hundred pounds of dynamite into an active volcano. They Never Found the Body, just a pile of singed chest hair. He isn't quite as physically dangerous 20 years later, but still.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
  • El Macho's faked death had him jump out of a plane on a shark strapped with dynamite and flying into a volcano. Pops up again later when he prepares to kill Lucy in the same way.
  • Gru melts his phone with a flamethrower when he can't bring himself to call Lucy.
• There Was a Door
  • Seconds after Gru accidentally triggers a fire alarm in his house, a minion who's blinded by his oversized helmet smashes through the door with a fire axe larger than himself. He then continues to flail it around at random, wrecks half of Gru's office and then hacks another hole into a nearby wall through which he disappears. His surprised scream indicates he wasn't on the first floor.
  • During Gru's recounting of El Macho's story, El Macho leaves a bar by walking straight through a wall, leaving a gaping hole behind. The guy that's holding his siesta right next to it doesn't even stir.
• This Banana is Armed: Lucy has her "lipstick taser."
  Lucy: You know you really should announce your weapons after you fire them, Mr. Gru. For example— lipstick taser! Oh, it works so good.
• Threatening Shark: Subverted; a shark swims up to Lucy's car, but she veers away and it passes by without harming them. Other sharks in the area don't pay them any attention. Also, the shark strapped to the dynamite-rigged rocket aimed for the volcano twitches around a little, but does no harm. The one on Lucy's rocket falls off of it and lands in a sushi shop, to the delight of its customers.
• Time Skip: The ending takes place 147 dates later.
• Toilet Humour: The Fart Guns make a return.
• Tongue on the Flagpole: One of the minions is trapped when he licks a Popsicle dangled in front of him and his tongue gets stuck. He wakes up on the tropical island with his tongue still stuck to it.
• Tragic Keepsake: When Lucy is about to be transferred to Australia, she gives him her lipstick taser as a memento from when they first met. Good thing, too, because it becomes a Chekhov's Gun when Gru uses it to take out El Macho.
• Trojan Prisoner: In order to get into El Macho's lair to rescue Lucy, Gru has two of his remaining minions disguise themselves as the Brainwashed and Crazy purple minions that El Macho kidnapped earlier, and make them pretend they captured him. They manage to get in, but their cover is blown before they can reach Lucy.
• Twice Shy: Implied to be this with Gru and Lucy's relationship. Thankfully, the pair do admit their feelings and after 147 dates they marry.
• Tutti Frutti Hat: One of the Minions makes a fruit hat out of Gru's fruit stash he uses for jelly. Later at the movie's end, when four Minions imitate Village People, one of them wears a fruit hat.

Tropes U-Z

• Unconventional Food Usage:
  • Gru is once seen wearing a hat made out of corn chip.
  • Dr. Nefario laces some jelly with an antidote and loads it into guns to cure some transmogrified minions.
• Underwater Base: The AVL Base that Gru is recruited for and where Lucy works is underwater.
• Unfortunate Names: Ramsbottom.
  Gru: Good day, Mr. Sheepsbutt.
  Ramsbottom: Ramsbottom.
  Gru: Yeah, like that's any better!
• Ungrateful Bastard: Even though Gru helped the AVL find the serum, Silas coldly thanks Gru...for being completely useless.
• Unreliable Narrator: Gru complains to Ramsbottom that instead of electrocuting and kidnapping people, he and the AVL should've contacted him another, less painful method if they wanted help (i.e., an email). However, Lucy only did those two things after Gru tried to use his freeze ray on her.
• Uptight Loves Wild: Gru and Lucy. Special bonus, since her last name is "Wilde".
• Villains Out Shopping: Literally. Eduardo goes into the bakery store manned by Gru and Lucy and asks for 200 cupcakes for the upcoming Cinco de Mayo bash.
• Waif-Fu: Lucy proves to have great reflexes despite being very thin.
• Walking Disaster Area: That one chick Gru's neighbor was going to set him up with trashes the birthday party far more than all the other shenanigans put together.
• Weaponized Stench: El Macho is defeated once and for all when Dr. Nefario fires the Fart Gun in his face.
• Wedding Finale: The film ends with Gru and Lucy getting married.
• We Can Rule Together: Non-romantic version; El Macho says this to Gru near the end.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • We never see what happens to El Macho after he is shot by Dr. Nefario.
  • Nor do you find out the fate of the wig store owner after he is arrested under false accusation, nor is it made explicit how trace amounts of the serum made it to his store (presumably planted by El Macho).
  • Antonio. He got frozen at the party, but his dad is the villain and has been defeated and we never see his mom. So, what happens to him after he defrosts? He still has a lot to pay for, after breaking Margo's heart.
• Wimp Fight: After the Cat Scare by the trash can one minion starts mocking the other one, and they start a slap fight... then a light from the sky picks them up.
• With Catlike Tread: Lucy's idea of stealth is to kick down a door screaming.
• Would Hurt a Child: Eduardo has no problem siccing a Brainwashed and Crazy Minion onto the girls when they're home... alone!
• X-Ray Vision: Gru and Lucy use them in one of their operations. Gru looks at Lucy with them, and sees her internal organs.
• Zeerust: Another one of Gru's inventions: A motorcycle version of the Grumobile.

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