Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013) [Blu-ray]
Animation | Comedy | Family | Fantasy | Sci-Fi

Tagline: Dill with it.

Inventor Flint Lockwood thought he saved the world when he destroyed his most infamous invention - a machine that turned water into food causing cheeseburger rain and spaghetti tornadoes. But Flint soon learns that his invention survived and is now combining food and animals to create "foodimals!" Flint and his friends embark on an adventurously mouth-watering mission to battle hungry tacodiles, shrimpanzees, hippotatomuses, cheesepiders and other foodimals to save the world - again!

Storyline: After the disastrous food storm in the first film, Flint and his friends are forced to leave the town. Flint accepts the invitation from his idol Chester V to join The Live Corp Company, which has been tasked to clean the island, and where the best inventors in the world create technologies for the betterment of mankind. When Flint discovers that his machine still operates and now creates mutant food beasts like living pickles, hungry tacodiles, shrimpanzees and apple pie-thons, he and his friends must return to save the world. Written by Reese Sara Eversting

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman on January 15, 2014 -- There's no such thing as small science...only small scientists.

Nothing is small in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, a buffet of color and oversized food products that have not merely descended onto Swallow Falls but overrun it, literally, now that it's all sprouted legs and minds of its own. Sony Animation has now squeezed two feature films out of Author Judi Barrett's 32-page 1978 children's book, a staple of Elementary school libraries and now filling two spaces on the family home entertainment shelf. The sequel, as sequels are prone to do, doesn't quite live up to the magic of the original, that film a also spectacle of multicolored food products and filled to the brim with charm and heart. The sequel features more of the former but less of the latter, telling a story that's a little less filling but tasty nonetheless, a quick and easy desert to the first film's gourmet main course. Core audience members -- young kids who fell in love with the original -- will find just as much to dazzle the eyes and delight the ears here. It's a big adventure with all the old characters and a few new ones in tow, and even absent that innate charm, most parents will find in the movie enough pleasure to make it worth sitting down as a family to give it a watch, or ten.

Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) has just put an end to the FLDSMDFR's madness and saved Swallow Falls and all his friends. And the fun has only just begun. To Flint's amazement, his childhood science hero, Chester V (voiced by Will Forte, channeling Hector Elizondo) arrives with orders from the United Nations to clean up the land. That means evacuating everyone to San FranJose, California, except Flint. Chester invites Flint to come to work for him at Live Corp, the leading scientific company in the world. Flint's amazed at the opportunity and even more excited to work with some of the smartest caffeine-driven scientists known to man. When he's passed over for a major workplace prize, he's dejected, but the secretly nefarious Chester V has other plans for him in mind. He recruits Flint to return to Swallow Falls and put an end to the FLDSMDFR, again. It's apparently still operational, mutating its food into living organisms that Flint will have to destroy if he wants to save the world. With his father Tim (voiced by James Caan), his trusty sidekick Steve (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris), his girl Sam Sparks (voiced by Anna Faris), the bully-turned-comic-releif Brent (voiced by Andy Samberg), Cameraman Manny (voiced by Benjamin Bratt), and officer Earl (voiced by Terry Crews, replacing the dynamic Mr. T) accompanying him, Flint sets out to win the heart of his hero, but at what personal cost?

While Cloudy 2 definitely delivers plenty of family fun, it fails to capture the wide-eyed, here-comes-the-sparkling-birthday-cake excitement, anticipation, and novelty of the first. This sequel can't quite escape the feeling that it's more a retread than it is an original idea, more last week's leftovers rather than a freshly cooked meal. There's precious little meat to the plot, and the side stories that work in lessons on friendship, hero worship, and the good in doing the right thing even under unusual pressures and circumstances are nicely implemented but don't break any new ground. The plot arc and angles can be seen coming faster than a pizza delivery driver with a minute left before the pie becomes free. Yet there's enough sugary goodness here that even the most hardened audiences will not reject the entire movie but will nevertheless come to quickly see all the base unoriginal elements presented therein.

Yet none of that really matters at the end of the day. Cloudy 2 is infectiously humorous and packs on the jokes -- and jokes that actually work, for that matter -- as quickly as hot fudge sundaes pack on the pounds (Flint really needs to invent a machine that removes all the bad stuff out of food but leaves the taste behind). It's colorful almost to a fault, an explosion of bright globs of eye candy -- literally, in some cases -- that can effectively and temporarily, at least, blind the audience to the lack of real substance underneath. It's the sort of movie one watches to truly watch, to see what sort of visual antics the filmmakers can think of next. The various "foodimals" are cleverly designed and utilized in every scene, the picture a bastion of Frankenstein-like creativity. Everything form plopping eyeballs onto strawberries and marshmallows to creating a giant spider-like creature out of a hamburger and french fries gives the movie a wonderfully unique flavor and shows audiences something that, gasp, they've never seen before and, frankly, probably never even imagined. That's where the Cloudy movies really work, in creating a wonderfully dynamic and creative universe where anything goes and everything's game.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 won't cause any indigestion, but neither is it a feast for anything but the eyes. The story lacks originality but certainly not creativity as Flint and company embark on an adventure quite unlike anything moviegoers have ever seen, or even imagined, before. The jokes come quickly and seem to always hit, but that's abut it. The movie feels terribly superficial, dabbling in themes that are nothing but staples of the modern animation genre. Still, that's enough to call the movie a success, something the young ones in the audience will eat up while still suitably palatable for the adults accompanying them. Sony's Blu-ray 3D release of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 features reference video, strong 3D, excellent audio, and a nice little assortment of extra content. Recommended.

[CSW] -2.6 This sequel is just odd. The machine that they thought they destroyed in the earlier film is actually still functioning and creating a bizarre breed of food animals. The best parts of the film were the creative animals that they created, but I found it a bit disturbing to have my food still wandering around and somewhat scary as well. The film did not seem to have an actual moral which you usually get with these types of films. I rented the 2D version to see if I wanted to purchase the 3D version. The 3D is probably exceptional but since this is not as good as the original I don't think I'll add the 3D version to my collection.
[V5.0-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box motion codes were available at the time of this rental although they are available now.


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