Cody Cameron – Kris Pearn’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013) Movie Review
Cast: Bill Hader (Flint Lockwood), Anna Faris (Sam Sparks), James Caan (Tim Lockwood), Will Forte (Chester V), Andy Samberg (Brent), Benjamin Bratt (Manny), Neil Patrick Harris (Steve), Terry Crews (Earl), Kristen Schaal (Barb)
Director: Cody Cameron, Kris Pearn
Screenplay: Erica Rivinoja and John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein
Story: Phil Lord & Christopher Miller and Erica Rivinoja
Runtime: 95 Minutes
After his food making machine, an invention that turned simple water molecules into scrumptious entrees, went berserk in the first movie, Flint Lockwood (voice of Bill Hader), his father Tim (voice of James Caan) and everyone else on the island of Swallow Falls are forced to evacuate and the food machine left to rot. But it didn’t.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 picks up where Sony Pictures Animation’s comedy left off.
The food machine kept making food, but this time, turning it into a food/animal hybrid, making creatures like the Watermelephantsand the Tacodiles. When a fellow inventor (Will Forte) tells Flint that the food animals are trying to take over the world, Flint assembles his meteorologist girlfriend Sam (Anna Faris), his dad Tim(James Caan), his town’s former idol Brent(Andy Samberg), his pet monkey Steve(Neil Patrick Harris), the cameraman Manny(Ben Bratt) and a police officer (Terry Crews) to go back to Swallow Falls. Madness and food puns results.
Directors Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn have clearly allowed the animators to let their visions run howler, creating a surrealistic smorgasbordof culinary characters. From shrimpanzeesto tacodiles and a cheeseburger spider with French fries for legs, there’s enough to glut every kid.
The voice cast are good, with Andy Samberg, Anna Faris, Benjamin Bratt, James Caan and Neil Patrick Harris all earning their crust. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is one of the best animation movies of the past decade. So I was definitely looking forward to the sequel with eminent expectations and those expectations were not met. Movies that try to entertain the adults while being for the kids as their primary audience, are really difficult. In this case, the kid part works fine. I’d say a child below 10 gonna like it.
It’s never a good thing when it feels like the storytellers only finally got the chance to get creative and clever during the closing credits. Also never a good thing? When a sequel opens with a recap of the first movie. The sequel can’t touch the first one in any regard. The animation is colorful and fun, but the jokes and the story just aren’t there. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is not only aimed at kids, but tenaciously formal and foully predictable, both in its remolding of old ground and its telegraphing of old jokes. Feels much more like a run-of-the-mill kid’s film than the hilarious and splendid first film.
Comment on 3D: The 3D animation in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is fine. As you’re watching the film, it truly feels like you are looking into the colorful world that food animal hybrid live in.
Bottom-line: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a slick and tasty slice of original pie. Sequel is like an HOMAGE to THE LAST WORLD
Survi Rating : 2/5
Theatrical Trailer:
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