Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 (Cody Cameron, Kris Pearn)

[Henry Gale]

IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1985966/)

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[Henry Gale]

Absolutely love the first one, it remains one of the most re-watchable movies of the last few years, is probably as well-devised a mix of comedy conceits and emotional payoffs as any comedy in that time as well, live action or animated. Not to mention it's the sort of thing that never gets old as the perfect go-to movie for throwing on when younger relatives and such visit, so for both that reason and my own enjoyment of it, I really I was going to be seeing this no matter what.

Cloudy 2, or, Cloudy with a Chance of Sequel: Revenge of the Leftovers as now-departed (but still story-credited) Phil Lord and Chris Miller wanted to call it, is a significant tier below the original (which its now month-long reception had kind of braced me for), almost playing as an incredibly well-rendered and produced extended episode of a Cloudy Saturday morning cartoon, but the characters' overlapping charms and beautifully lush and proportionally askew universe continue to prove to be a strong enough foundation to stage a more flimsy, forgettable narrative. It's less cinematic and durable when picked apart, but it's fun and more than occasionally gorgeous, even if no 3D visuals really find a way to match the motif of the falling food's depth and detail in the first one.

Not to mention my biggest fear going in was that the trailers made it seem as if the entire thing was going to be made up of food puns and related sight gags. I swear the main trailer for this is entirely made up of the 10-minute sequence where the gang returns to the island at the half-hour point. Almost all the jokes I knew beforehand were one from that extended portion of the movie and that very specific riffing on discovering all the hybrid breeds of foodimals.

If you liked the first one even half as much as I did, then give it shot, but just don't expect a Toy Story 2 or Kung Fu Panda 2-esque refining and expanding of themes, scope or dimension, or even as well-scripted gags or as well-rounded "every character's quirk or perceived mistake serves a purpose" sort of revelations this time around. It's not as strong, but the flavour's still there. (Dammit, I didn't want to end this with some sort of food analogy...)

*** / B-

[Qrazy]

I thought Kung Fu Panda 2 was pretty crappy personally. I agree with your analysis of this one though. The biggest problem is the enemy here and his treatment. You can't make a statement about the value of life and then kill off your villain, it just doesn't really work that way.

[Henry Gale]

Yeah, the Forte character ending was a bit awkward, since I wasn't sure in the moment if they had a giant hamburger spider eat him because it was a fun ironic visual and of course he's not dead because what sort of digestive tract would that species even have? But then they don't ever mention him again and I realized he probably wouldn't be back for a sequel just like Bruce Campell's character from the first one, so whoops, the gang is responsible for the death of an evil enviromental Steve Jobs-like mogul that people will surely want to to look for and know exactly where to do so.

Not to mention the majority of the film takes place on the island over a couple of days and I don't recall them ever actually eating anything other than maybe fish since that's Flint's dad whole thing. So, fuck fish, they can die, but genetic hybrids of food and animals? Don't lay a finger on them, since... oh, wait. What are we going to eat now that we've settled into this place where all food is sentient? So basically that whole idea goes out the window and they'll definitely start eating the foodimals.

Cloudy 3 is going to be really dark.

[dreamdead]

Yeah, this one is just inconsistent. It's still got some wonderful main characters, but the structure of it (what are they supposed to eat now?) undercuts the central angle of the first film. That first one is wonderful and one of the most charming films I watched last year, but this one is much more derivative and undoes the complexity and education that the original had.

[Skitch]

I LOVE the first one. This second wasn't as good, but was still a lot of fun. I am not a pun guy...this movie rides the pun from amusing, to not funny, to enough already, to they're still doing it, to now its funny again its so ridiculous, to its gone on so long its hilarious. Merely a shade of the first film's excellence, but I was still laughing.