Mark Reviews Movies: SING 2

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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 21, 2021

Whatever its various and multiple faults, the put-on-a-show mentality of the original Sing gave us some decent musical performances of a diverse selection of songs. That came with plenty of odd ones, too, made possible by the casting and the fact that we were watching famous people sing behind the façade of anthropomorphic animated animals. Sing 2 is basically more of the same, with a few of the original actors diminished (or cut entirely) and some new voices behind some new animals. What's the point? It's to give us more of the same, of course.

This gimmick is a tougher sell on a second round. Returning writer/director Garth Jennings tries, for sure. The scope of this sequel is bigger, giving us a big city, a giant stage, and an over-produced musical to serve as the backdrop and driving force of its thin story.

The bigger names of the original cast return, including Reese Witherspoon, Taron Egerton, Scarlett Johansson, and a non-singing Matthew McConaughey as the koala impresario (Seth MacFarlane's crooning mouse must have been eaten or stepped on in the interim). Some of the new voices include a pair of mononymous professional singers, Halsey and Bono, and Pharrell Williams.

Bono and Williams give us one song a piece, and like in the first movie, one is tempted to work out how much of the budget has been allotted to gaining the rights to the assorted songs, paying the actors, and, now, paying the singers behind these glorified cameos. If we ever get to a seventh or even just a fourth installment of this burgeoning series, one can already imagine a pretty impressive lineup of performers, simply taking turns with their tunes without a hint of plot. The soundtrack would be interesting, to be sure, but as the first movie proved and this one continues to show, a movie is not its soundtrack—no matter how eclectic and eccentric it may be.

Again, every character has something—and a lot less of that something—to do in this entry. Buster Moon (voice of McConaughey) has revitalized his little theater with the cast he assembled from the singing competition of the first movie. He wants them to have more fame and acclaim, though.

That means auditioning to perform for Mr. Crystal (voice of Bobby Cannavale), a ruthless wolf and casino owner in a Vegas-like city (There's a montage of other auditions, just to add to the obscene number of songs and music styles in the movie). They get through the audition with a paper-thin idea for a science-fiction musical and the promise of getting Clay Calloway (voiced by an unconvincingly gruff Bono) to come out of self-imposed, isolated retirement for a rare performance.

The rest of this follows the mechanics and drama behind-the-scenes on the production, with Crystal's daughter Porsha (voice of Halsey) whining her way into the lead role promised to the pig Rosita (voice of Witherspoon), while Buster and pop-punk-rocker porcupine Ash (voice of Johansson) try to woo a grieving Clay back to the spotlight. Another subplot has Johnny (voice of Egerton) trying to become a dancer, under the tutelage of break-dancing wild cat Nooshy (voice of Letitia Wright). The other significant one features elephant Meena (voice of Tori Kelly) trying to find chemistry with blowhard ox Darius (voice of Eric André) and falling for an ice cream vendor, who's voiced by Williams. Kelly and William's duet of "I Say a Little Prayer" is nice, at least.

Some of the other performances are nice, too, which is something. With Bono on call for the movie, a few U2 songs make the cut (including a new one for the end credits), and the climactic performance of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," sung by Johansson and the band's lead singer (finally, after a long wait and a lot of maudlin moping), is kind of rousing.

There's still the matter of the plot, which is strung together by the weak show-within-this-show and leaves any sense of the characters, who were thinly drawn already, to fade. Buster ends up the target of Crystal's murderous ire (With that and Clay's emotional devastation and some other tough moments for a couple of characters, one starts to wonder where the potential fun of this material has gone), and all of the shenanigans off-stage during the actual show—a battle between gangsters and henchmen, as well as a lot of attempted sabotage—serve as an unwelcome distraction.

In a way, the whole of Sing 2 is a distraction. The plot is a distraction between the songs, and the tunes are distractions from how pointless the story is.

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