Movie review: Upbeat and toe-tapping Sing 2 will entertain music-lovers of all ages
Bono as Clay Calloway is a grizzled old lion who takes pot-shots at any intruder who dares trespass on his self-imposed solitude
★★★★☆
Opening with an Alice in Wonderland sequence featuring elephants, gorillas and giant caterpillars performing to Prince’s Let’s Go Crazy, Sing 2 (G) certainly can’t be faulted for ambition.
A sequel to the 2016 smash-hit animated musical, the story finds impresario Buster Moon (voiced by Matthew McConaughey, and surely the hardest working koala in showbusiness) aiming to break into the big time with his motley troupe of singers and dancers (voiced by Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson and Taron Egerton, among others).
Having bluffed his way into producing a show in the Vegas-style Red Shore City by promising the wolf-like Mr Crystal (Bobby Cannavale) that he can cast the reclusive singer Clay Calloway (Bono), Buster has three weeks to write, direct, cast and choreograph the blockbuster sci-fi musical Out of This World, this in addition to persuading Calloway to come out of retirement — always assuming, of course, that he can find Calloway first ...
Written and directed by Garth Jennings, who also directed the original, Sing 2 is a very enjoyable musical-about-a-musical, the casting and rehearsing of which allows for a host of song-and-dance numbers in a deliciously eclectic range of styles — we get Elton John, Holst, Mercury Rev and Aretha Franklin, to name but a few.
Bono sounds almost nothing like himself in voicing Clay Calloway, but he’s obviously happy to send up his public persona, with Calloway a grizzled old lion who takes pot-shots at any intruder who dares trespass on his self-imposed solitude.
Elsewhere, Matthew McConaughey brings a delightfully naive enthusiasm to Buster Moon — it’s hard to resist a koala who craves world domination — while Scarlett Johansson contributes a particularly poignant number when singing Stuck in a Moment to the depressed Calloway.
Upbeat, pacy and chock-a-block with toe-tapping numbers, Sing 2 will entertain music-lovers of all ages.
(cinema release)
