When last we left Gru (Steve Carrell), he had turned his back on a life of evil genius and turned to fatherhood. As Despicable Me 2 opens, he is still working hard at that new role -- maybe a little bit too hard, but opening your heart to love can cause a man to go overboard.

He still retains the trappings of his villainous lifestyle, only now he has focused the efforts of Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand) and his yellow tylenol Minions toward a completely overthought line of jams and jellies. Come to think of it, going into marketing could still be evil...

If you know anything about sequels -- especially to animated films -- Despicable Me 2 holds no plot surprises. (In fact, I suspect that the plot will be repeated in The Smurfs 2.) Yet it's all played so sweetly that, as a family film, the lack of depth is almost forgivable.

Of course Gru is having trouble realizing his oldest daughter Margo (Miranda Cosgrove) is interested in boys. (Thanks for showing me the way, Gru.) And of course the middle daughter, Edith (Dana Gaier) probably wants to follow the original family business -- but that's being saved for Despicable Three.

The real focus is on Agnes (Elsie Fisher), the unicorn-obsessed little girl who melted all the Minions' hearts even before she got to Gru. He's a good dad and all, but Agnes needs a mommy. So when Special Agent Lucy (Kristen Wiig) shows up to co-opt Gru for the side of good, well, some of you might just want to skip to the end you predicted from the trailer.

And unfortunately, at its weakest, such emotional plot points happen just because they're supposed to happen. Directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud have put far more effort into the misadventures of the Minions, and not really any into making the relationships believable.

As a result, the misadventures ARE funny, with a gentle undertone of affable cruelty that marks the best slapstick. (You can thank Coffin and Renaud for the hundreds of thousands of children this summer who will be chanting "Bee DOH Bee DOH Bee DOH" randomly everywhere you go.)

Even Gru has his moments, as he tries to outwit the greatest villain in history, El Macho (now voiced by Benjamin Bratt but once was Al Pacino -- oh, lord, the lost performance that must have been).

So the loud moments work; the quiet moments -- just like most live-action summer films so far -- need a little something.

Despicable Me 2 is funny, and it's hard to tell if it set its ambitions any higher than that. So take it as it is, an only mildly offensive kids' comedy that has more fun moments than not. That might not be great, but it certainly isn't despicable.

Derek McCaw