Sing 2 arrives with a harder job than its 2016 predecessor: the first film had nothing to prove, and this one has to justify a franchise. Garth Jennings, who wrote and directed both, moves the action out of the theater and into Redshore City, where Buster Moon and his cast try to impress entertainment mogul Jimmy Crystal. It is a bigger, louder movie. It is not a better one.
Trailer, via Illumination.
Buster Moon Sneaks Into Crystal Entertainment
The plot sets up a clean enough premise. Buster’s show fails to impress talent scout Suki Lane, so he gathers Johnny, Rosita, Gunter, Meena and Miss Crawly and travels to Redshore City. Denied entry to Crystal Entertainment, they sneak in for an audition. When Jimmy rejects Buster’s original pitch, Gunter suggests a space-themed sci-fi musical built on songs by Clay Calloway, a rock legend who vanished after his wife Ruby died 15 years ago.
Jimmy greenlights it, assuming Clay is already on board. He is not. That gap is the whole engine of the film, and it is a good one: Buster has to find a recluse and talk him back onto a stage. Miss Crawly locates Clay’s home and gets chased off with a paintball gun.
“Where will your dreams take you?”
A Voice Cast That Outweighs Its Material
The cast is deep. Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Taron Egerton, Tori Kelly, Nick Kroll and Nick Offerman reprise their roles. Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Pharrell Williams, Letitia Wright, Eric André, Chelsea Peretti and Bono join. Bono voices Clay, the recluse the entire plot hinges on.
That is a lot of talent spent on subplots that never connect. Rosita’s fear of heights gets her demoted to a minor role. Johnny falls behind with choreographer Klaus Kickenklober and learns from street dancer Nooshy. Meena cannot play a romantic scene opposite the egocentric Darius, then falls for an ice cream vendor named Alfonso. Each thread is fine alone. Together they stall the middle hour.
The Numbers Behind Sing 2
- Runtime: 110 minutes
- Budget: $85 million
- Worldwide gross: $408 million
- Metacritic: 49/100
- World premiere: November 14, 2021, AFI Fest
- U.S. theatrical release: December 22, 2021
Those figures tell the real story. Sing 2 became the highest-grossing animated film of 2021 and the tenth-highest-grossing film of 2021 overall. A sequel is in development. Commercially, Jennings delivered exactly what Universal and Illumination wanted.
Where the Movie Actually Stands
The songs are performed diegetically, which keeps the musical numbers tethered to what the characters are doing rather than floating free. That is the film’s sturdiest choice. It also means the soundtrack carries weight the script cannot, and when a scene needs feeling it reaches for a cover instead of writing one.
The emotional core — a widower talked back into the world — is the only part with stakes. Jimmy’s threat to hurt Buster if he does not deliver Clay lands, in this paper’s view, because it is the one consequence the movie lets sit. Everything else resolves too easily. Rosita’s fear, Johnny’s dancing, Meena’s romance: all fixed by the next scene.
Sing 2 is competent, crowded and safe. It is a movie built to move product, and it does. What it does not do is earn the sequel it clearly wants.
4.9 of 10.
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