The greatest gospel song ever written is U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” (Fight me!) It channels religiosity and restlessness, it celebrates faith by way of doubt, through the words “I still” and “haven’t found,” implying that the search for hope, love, and belief, much like our pursuit of the divine, is an unending quest. The song will rouse both the faithful and the faithless, irrespective of whether they’re listening to it for first time, or the fiftieth. And it is precisely on such a foundation that Sing 2 builds its entire narrative structure. Whether or not you connect to this movie is entirely dependent on the cultural cachet of this one song.
In fact, there are three key moments in this movie, and each one of them relies on a U2 song to do all of the heavy lifting: “Where the Streets Have No Name,” “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of,” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” I don’t even have to describe them and yet I’m certain that you can picture exactly what those moments were and how they played out.
It’s a risky move, rooting the emotional core of your movie on the audience’s reaction to those three songs, but writer/director Garth Jennings is smart enough to know exactly how to exploit the flawless appeal of the world’s most popular band. It is, after all, music that is so ingrained into our pop culture consciousness that it would be impossible to not react to it when we hear it.
It is a risky move, but one that pays off in a way that elevates an otherwise paint-by-numbers movie into something that might just evoke an emotional response.
Lights, Camera, Action!
There was always going to be a sequel to Sing. A 75 million dollar movie, with an all star voice cast, and more pop songs than you can shake a stick at (I counted at least 60), that raked in over 600 million dollars at the global box-office, was all but guaranteed a sequel. The first movie was a finely tuned piece of corporatized art that took advantage of how this generation discovers and consumes its music. It was completely exploitative, but done in such a clever and earnest manner (and without the cringe and simplemindedness of those Trolls movies), that you were willing to look past it and enjoy the ride.
Now there’s good reason studios keep putting out these pop-tracked movies. (See: Trolls, Trolls World Tour, Cinderella, etc.) Kids love to sing and kids love to dance. Kids also love watching movies and TV shows in which people and animals (and Trolls), great and small, sing and dance. It has become such an easy sell that there is a well established template to how these stories often play out.
Sing 2 is no different.
The movie opens during a staging of Buster Moon’s (Matthew McConaughey) Alice in Wonderland. It’s a big and boisterous production of Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy,” in which all of our favourite characters from the first movie exploding onto the screen in spectacular fashion. The theatre is heaving. It’s a sold out performance. And we immediately get the idea that things are going well for our theatrical impresario and his menagerie of all singing, all dancing creatures.
While his small town dreams may have been fulfilled, Buster, however, has much bigger ambitions. He wants to go to the Vegas-like Red Shore City and put on a mega-musical for the hotel tycoon Jimmy Crystal (Bobby Cannavale), who just happens to be looking for the “next big thing.” Their audition is a bust, but an unplanned and drawn out pitch by Gunter (Nick Kroll), about a sci-fi musical that features the legendary rock recluse Clay Calloway (Bono… yes, that Bono!), wins Jimmy over and he agrees to finance their elaborate effort.
All of the expected hijinks ensue. Rosita (Reese Witherspoon), Johnny (Taron Egerton), and Meena (Tori Kelly) have new personal crises to overcome. Ash (Scarlett Johansson) is faced with having to convince a grieving rockstar that his music will save both him and the world. And Buster finds himself, once again, struggling to prove that his dream is worth fighting for.
Your Kids Will Love It!
Sing 2 has absolutely no right being as good as it is.
There is absolutely nothing new in Sing 2. From its opening Prince number, all the way to that brand new U2 song at the end, the movie plays out completely, entirely, exactly the way you expect it to. You’ve seen this all before. Every beat, every turn, every “twist.” This is a movie that’s cut from the same cloth as every second tier animated feature ever made. And yet, there’s something about the way it’s put together – the obvious jokes, the incredibly well placed pop songs, Matthew McConaughey’s super sincere performance as Buster Moon – that moves you, and makes you laugh, and keeps you in the moment. There’s something about the way these characters are written, as passionate, and kind, and unwavering in their pursuit of happiness, that will have you totally invested in their simple but well-meaning lives.
You may not remember Sing 2 a week from now. It’s not even the kind of movie that you stumble upon on television and just keep watching because it’s on. It is, however, an enjoyable and inoffensive way to spend two hours at the cinemas. Well crafted, mechanical but not uninspiring, and entertaining in spite of itself, this is a movie that does its job as a delightful diversion from the horrors of the outside world. To paraphrase the quotes on a poster from Buster Moon’s production of Alice in Wonderland: “It’s a bit of silly fun that your kids are going to love.”
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