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YMMV / Sing 2

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  • Accidental Aesop:
    • Klaus's conflict with Johnny is a standard "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" type of aesop - but it can also come off as "A teacher should also be willing to adapt to the student's needs" or even "A teacher should be aware of new ideas".
    • Achieving your dreams isn't a one-and-done thing that ends when you either succeed or fail. It's an ongoing process that requires growth and sometimes, even risk.
    • Nearly every consequential action in the film is a parable in simple patience and hearing people out. Suki and the rest of the Crystal's personnel being unwilling to even give Buster's troupe a fair shot (justified or not) only fuels him into proving them wrong. Gunter and Porsha start off ignored (with Porsha in a completely unfitting role), only to have their vital talent recognized later on, and Ash successfully gets Clay out of his reclusive state by patient coercion. All these meant Crystal himself would have ultimately got a successful show out of Buster had he not went into a murderous rampage over a petty misunderstanding.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Were Suki and other employees of Jimmy Crystal such as the hotel secretary dismissive towards Buster and his group out of simple rudeness, or were they trying to ward away a naive client that risked angering their Bad Boss? It seems true for Suki, considering her reaction after Moon suffers the blunt of Crystal's attitude the first time and her actions in the climax, but some of her critique to Buster early on is concise enough to imply she genuinely thought his act just wasn't good enough.
    • When Jimmy is about to drop Buster off the balcony of Crystal Tower, Jerry arrives to remind his employer of his scheduled chat show appearance, which unintentionally allows the koala to escape. He later brings in Le Bon herself to chat with Jimmy during his second murder attempt, showing visible relief when it cools his temper. Was this intervention a case of Everyone Has Standards on Jerry's part, or was he simply thinking about the potential consequences of Buster landing dead on the sidewalk right before Crystal's interview about him?
  • And You Thought It Would Fail: Much like the original, Sing 2 had quite a bit going against it: A tepid year for animated movies, trailers that gave away most of the climax, the rise of the COVID-19 Omicron variant, and massive competition from Spider-Man: No Way Home. The last one in particular was a major factor, given how many other movies were blown away by its monster success to the point of theaters renting out more screens for it. Despite it all, Sing 2 managed to become the highest grossing animated film of 2021 and the tenth highest grossing film of the same year.
  • Angst? What Angst?:
    • Buster gets over Jimmy's second attempt on his life notably quicker than he did from their earlier confrontation.
    • While it's implied that she's at least aware of the violent lengths he'll go to, Porsha is never shown reflecting on the fact that she witnessed her father attempting to murder Buster.
  • Awesome Art: The backgrounds are absolutely gorgeous, with special mention going to The Crystal Theater and Clay Calloway's house.
  • Base-Breaking Character: Buster Moon once again divides opinion in this film, largely because of his Aesop Amnesia. His fans love his optimism, the strong, supportive bonds he has with each one of his performers, and the interesting shades of gray he has as a showman who's presented in a very flawed but well-meaning light. They feel that he more than paid the price for his poor decisions, since Jimmy Crystal abused him, almost killed him twice, and probably traumatized him as well. On the other hand, his detractors grew to dislike him even more than they already did in the last movie, since he seemingly learned nothing from his previous mistakes, needlessly invited more trouble towards himself and his friends, and got away with all of his lies and deception in the end because Jimmy turned out to be a psychopath who got himself arrested for attempted murder. What furthers this is that the film seems to call it both ways, as unlike the first film, which was a standard Liar Revealed plot, he is put on the spot for his deception quite early on, but does have every intent to commit to his promises and actually has a stable project running by the time that Jimmy turns on him over an unrelated misunderstanding that wasn't even his fault.
  • Broken Base: Eddie and Mike getting hit with Chuck Cunningham Syndrome is seen as either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who you ask. With Mike in particular, a large factor in how you feel about his absence is whether you found his egotistical antics to be funny or obnoxious in the previous movie. For Eddie, it's largely the contention between those that liked his character and best friend relationship with Buster in the first film, or those who preferred seeing the rest of the group have a more fleshed out dynamic with the latter in his absence (especially Ash and Gunter).
  • Catharsis Factor: Jimmy Crystal treats everyone around him poorly throughout the entire movie - from his employees, to his daughter, to the Moon Theater troupe. He even goes so far as to try to murder Buster Moon in cold blood, twice, with the rather dark implication that he's already had several other murder victims before Buster. All of which makes the extended Humiliation Conga that our protagonists subject him to in the movie's third act all the more satisfying to watch, as things spiral completely out of Jimmy's control, with absolutely nothing the mad wolf can do to try to stop it. Jimmy's impotent rage when Rosita (a woman he looks down upon) ruins his second attempt to kill Buster for him, at the last possible second, is especially gratifying to see.
  • Critical Dissonance: The movie received mixed reviews from critics, but received an A+ grade from audiences polled by CinemaScore, the highest score on the website.
  • Crazy Is Cool: Ms. Crawly, while as much the Scatterbrained Senior assistant to Buster as she was in the first film, really demonstrates her hyper-reliability in this film: unravelling the fifteen year mystery of Clay Calloway's location in just one day, filling in as a director with an iron fist in Buster's absence, sneaking into Jimmy Crystal's mansion to induct his daughter into their show, and at one point applying her own rendition of System of A Down's "Chop Suey!".
  • Diagnosed by the Audience: Jimmy Crystal's outbursts and obsession with his reputation suggest he suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
  • Die for Our Ship: Nooshy, Johnny's new friend and dance coach, received a good amount of blowback in the months leading up to the film's release, from fans of the popular, preexisting Johnny/Ash ship who didn't want to see him getting close to another girl, and fans who want to believe Johnny is gay due to the usual gay parallels his unapproving parent storyline had in the first movie. This reaction eventually died down a lot after the film's release. Johnny and Nooshy are canonically just friends in the film itself, which managed to placate fans who ship the gorilla with other characters, fans who enjoy their friendship the way it is, and fans who speculate that the two might become something more than that down the line. Nooshy also became a pretty popular character in her own right for her spunk, sassiness and kindhearted nature.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: While it's rare to find hardcore defenders of Jimmy Crystal, there are fans who feel that he would have benefitted from therapy. Some fans go several steps further than that and claim that Jimmy's full murderous wrath towards Buster was both justified and well-deserved, because of the fraudulent business deal the koala made with him, and that it was an injustice that Jimmy was locked up at the film's end - which ignores the movie's strong implication that Buster was nowhere near the first victim of Jimmy's murderous tendencies towards anyone who got on his bad side. Fanfics where Jimmy is portrayed in a tragic or sympathetic light also tend to have him care much more about maintaining his relationships with his assistant, Jerry, and his daughter, Porsha, than his canon self actually does (in the film, he never feels any remorse about physically hurting the former several times, or emotionally turning the latter against him).
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Even Better Sequel: Many fans consider this movie to be superior to the original, due to having a more memorable, fleshed out antagonist, a consistently strong soundtrack, and a lot of heartwarming character development for the cast members who have returned from the previous film. Notably, while the two films have very similar critic scores on Rotten Tomatoes (71% and 72% respectively), the second movie has a higher audience score than the first one (73% for Sing, and 98% for Sing 2).
  • Fanfic Fuel:
    • It's implied that Clay Calloway is a complete stand in for Bono, and whatever songs U2 performed in our universe are Clay’s in the Sing world. But he's the only professional musician we meet. Does every Real Life singer have an animal parallel out there? And if so, who? Technically there is also Porsha who is Halsey and Alfonso who is Pharrell? Or perhaps all the voice cast are technically their musicians In-Universe? i.e. Taron Egerton is Taron Egerton the gorilla in this universe and Tori Kelly is Tori Kelly the elephant? The "Alice In Wonderland" script also cites it as an adaptation, meaning an animal Lewis Carroll lived at one point. We might be heading into Kevin & Kell territory here.
    • At the end of the movie, Porsha Crystal officially decides to throw her lot in with the Moon Theater troupe, while her father is sent away to prison. A lot of fanfics tend to explore what her life will be like after the events of Sing 2: what her current living situation is, what kind of dynamics she'll go on to form with each member of the theater troupe, how she'll deal with all the media attention she'll be receiving in the wake of her father's downfall, and how she'll come to terms with her relationship with Jimmy, now that she's more or less cut all ties with him.
    • By the end of the film, Jimmy Crystal has lost his position, his reputation, his freedom, and his relationship with his daughter all at once. And Jimmy has been shown to be a very, very vengeful and vindictive man, who does not seem like the sort of person who would take responsibility for the consequences of his own actions. So a very common premise for post-Sing 2 fanfics is Jimmy trying to take his revenge on the Moon Theater troupe: either by breaking out of prison so he can try to kill them in person, or by using the vast amount of money and influence he possesses to try to destroy them from a distance.
    • There are quite a few fanfics centered around Jimmy Crystal's background, his rise to power in Redshore City, and the idea of giving him a redemption arc after the events of Sing 2, once he's officially hit rock bottom, so he can potentially reconcile with Porsha.
  • Fandom-Specific Plot: Buster Moon having PTSD due to almost dying is a very common subject in fanfiction, to the point in some where even seeing Porsha frightens him.
  • Fanon:
  • Foe Yay Shipping: Buster Moon/Jimmy Crystal has seen plenty of fanart.
  • Genius Bonus: When Jimmy is saying goodnight to Porsha, not knowing that she's already snuck out to join Buster and the others, a giant portrait of himself dressed as Louis XVI can be seen hanging in the hallway of his mansion. Louis XVI is historically known as the last King of France, who realized too late that his oppressed subjects were plotting against him, a fitting reflection of how the Moon Troupe are secretly putting the show on behind Jimmy's back, and will ultimately (albeit inadvertently) cause his complete downfall.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • For both Japanese viewers and Anime fans alike, the revelation that Jerry is in love with Jimmy Crystal, his boss, comes as this, since their Japanese voice actors, Daiki Yamashita and Akio Ōtsuka respectively, previously worked together in My Hero Academia as Izuku Midoriya/Deku and All For One respectively, considering that both characters are mortal enemies in that show.
    • In the Swedish dub, Jimmy Crystal is voiced by Björn Bengtsson, who the following year would voice in two other animated films, and one thing all three movies have in common is that the three different characters Bengtsson voices are all wolves.
  • Just Here for Godzilla: Many people went to see the movie because they were fans of some of the new cast members, which include Bono, Halsey, and Pharrell Williams. What also helps is that this film was many of the new cast members' voice acting debut.
  • Like You Would Really Do It: During Buster's second visit to Jimmy Crystal's office, their intense confrontation ends with an enraged Crystal seemingly dropping Buster off the balcony to plummet to his death, which is hard to believe given there's still around half an hour left in the runtime. When Crystal turns around to face Jerry, it's revealed that a terrified Buster latched back onto his arm just in time.
  • Love to Hate: After the film was released, Jimmy Crystal very quickly became one of the most popular new additions to the franchise. Between Bobby Cannavale's sinister performance as the evil businessman, the very wide and vivid range of expressions that the animators gave him, and how surprisingly dark his actions are for an otherwise lighthearted film, a lot of Sing fans will gladly state that they enjoyed his role as a villain in this movie, and they also enjoyed watching him suffer as he's subjected to a prolonged Humiliation Conga in the film's final act.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Jimmy Crystal is abrasive and unpleasant from his introduction, but at first his decisions seem to stem from ruthless pragmatism. Then when his daughter loses the starring role, he crosses the line by attempting to murder Buster by throwing him off the roof, only stopping because he has to appear for an event. Then when Suki gives Buster an opportunity to escape, Crystal tries to have thugs track him down and kill him, and at the climax Crystal tries to personally kill Buster again by throwing him off a catwalk, and would have succeeded if Rosita hadn't overcome her fear of heights and caught Buster.
  • One True Threesome:
    • Those who have no problems with Nooshy getting close to Johnny see nothing wrong with just folding her into Johnny/Ash.
    • Johnny, Nooshy and Ryan is also another poly ship that you'll find from fans who like to pair up the gorilla with his dance coach and his sparring partner.
  • Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: Clay Calloway's relationship towards Ash is intended to be that of a father figure. However, some of the looks he gives her, particularly during their duet, can easily come off as romantic. Likewise, it's pretty hard to hear Your Song Saved My Life and interpret it as being platonic.
  • Popular with Furries:
    • Porsha Crystal has become very popular in the furry community, on account of being an attractive female wolf with a beautiful singing voice.
    • Suki Lane is also popular for being a tall, elegant Saluki woman who is paired with Buster for the Tiny Guy, Huge Girl appeal.
    • Clay Calloway and Jimmy Crystal also have gained some popularity among the furry community, particularly among fans of the Bara Genre.
  • Portmanteau Couple Name:
    • Johnny and Nooshy together are called 'Jooshy'.
    • Johnny and Ryan together are called 'Rynny'.
    • Suki and Buster together are called 'MoonLane'.
    • Jimmy and Buster together are called 'CrystalMoon'.
  • Rooting for the Empire: At least some of Buster Moon's detractors were rooting for Jimmy Crystal to kill him.
  • Self-Fanservice: Clay Calloway and Jimmy Crystal are sometimes drawn with less cartoony proportions in fanart. The same goes for Porsha and Suki, who are also given a curvier figure.
  • Shipping:
    • Jimmy/Jerry, due to the latter's Undying Loyalty to his boss and his declaration of love as Jimmy is taken away by the police. Although, due to the Unfortunate Implications of Jerry being in love with Jimmy, who is abusive to everyone, and unless an extreme amount of Draco in Leather Pants is applied, some fans lean more towards Buster/Jerry, with the two having shared experiences with Jimmy and Buster helping Jerry understand that he deserves better than Jimmy.
    • Johnny/Nooshy. Johnny asks the spunky, street-dancing lynx for help learning how to dance and the pair become good friends as a result, sharing a very playful and supportive bond that brings out a different side of the gorilla than usual. A lot of fans think they would make a cute couple, and like to believe they'll start dating someday after the events of the movie. It's also not uncommon to see shippers interpret Johnny’s big number in the show, "A Sky Full Of Stars", as a love song, especially since Nooshy helps him keep his confidence up during it more than once.
    • Johnny/Ryan, especially for those who consider Johnny to be gay-coded. Ryan works the closest with Johnny of all his fellow dancers, is supportive of Johnny from the moment he joins the classes, and is shown to be the most uncomfortable whenever Klaus Kickenklober goes out of his way to demean Johnny. After reluctantly allowing Klaus to take his place in Out of This World in an effort to break Johnny, he joins the others in encouraging Johnny to prove Klaus wrong.
    • Buster/Suki is also a popular ship due to the two becoming good friends over the course of the film's events. And the latter saving the former's life and having a change of heart due to a possible underlying crush. It helps that they have an appealing Tiny Guy, Huge Girl dynamic.
    • Ash/Nooshy has proven quite popular among some fans who headcanon them to be gay or bi, despite the two of them never interacting with each other.
  • Tainted by the Preview: Just like the first film, not a lot of people were happy that the trailers spoiled most of the major plot elements of the movie.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • The death of Clay's wife being the reason he gave up on everything and hid away was given away by all the marketing, and in the film itself is just casually mentioned by Ash in passing near the beginning. This could have been a much more effective reveal if it was omitted from the previews and kept a complete secret until later on in the film when Ash and Buster meet Clay, without any changes to the story being needed.
    • Buster could have served as a foil to Clay, having strived for theatrical success even while mourning his father, but he never talks to Clay about it before Ash sends him back to the hotel.
  • Unexpected Character: When Buster and the others prepare to put on their climactic performance, Johnny's father, who was last seen returning to prison in the first film, shows up with his gang to protect the New Moon Troupe from Crystal and his thugs.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: There's a lot more movement in this film - as well as the really nice effects on Buster's wet fur and Clay's mane.

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