Despicable Me 2 album for the film, released on June 18, 2013 through Back Lot Music. The original music was composed by Heitor Pereira and Pharrell Williams. The album was promoted by the highly successful single "Happy" performed by Williams. "Despicable Me 2" received positive reviews from critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 74% approval rating with an average rating of 6.7/10 based on 177 reviews. The website's consensus reads, ""Despicable Me 2" offers plenty of eye-popping visual inventiveness and a number of big laughs." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating from mainstream critics, gave the film
Despicable Me gave the film an eight out of ten, saying, "It's all thoroughly adorable, and with an overlay that's nearly as odd as Carell's accent: "Despicable Me" looks a lot like other computer-animated pictures." Mary F. Pols of "MSN Movies" gave the film four out of five stars, saying, "The movie finishes strong, managing to be sweet without being saccharine. It's no "Toy Story 3", but "Despicable Me" is a solid alternative." A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" gave the film two out of five stars, saying, "So much is going on in this movie that, while there's nothing