We pick up exactly 8 minutes after the first movie concludes, just after ChewandSwallow (previously known as Swallow Falls) is overcome by an enormous food storm which was caused by Flint Lockwood’s Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator, a machine that can turn water into whatever kind of food you want. In the first movie, the machine went berserk and completely demolished the entire island. Fortunately, Flint was able to stop his invention from completely taking over the entire world.
Here, we join Flint (Bill Hader), his girlfriend Sam Sparks(Anna Faris), his dad(James Caan), and the rest of the town as they attempt to decide how they plan to help rebuild the island. Enter Chester V (Will Forte), Flint’s childhood hero, also known to be one of the greatest inventors ever, and the creator of Live Corp, a company that hires inventors who spend countless hours designing and testing out every idea they can conjure up. All for the sake of earning an orange vest and being able to work side by side with Chester V, which IS every inventors dream. Six months after Flint is offered a job at Live Corp, he finds out his food replicator is still fully functional and it has created an entire eco-system of mutated food animals, who have managed to adapt and prosper in their new habitat. Chester V sends Flint back to ChewandSwallow to shut down the food replicator in hopes of garnering the machine for his own personal gain. The ever so gullible Flint enlists the help of his loyal friends and family to assist him on his mission to stop his invention and earn himself his very own orange vest from Chester V.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was the very first hit for Sony Pictures Animation studio, thus warranting a sequel. Flint’s second adventure far exceeded my expectations; I actually enjoyed part two more than I enjoyed the first movie, mainly because of the creativity behind the mutated evolution of the food animal hybrids—it was very punny! The ‘Foodimals’ were very sweet and fun loving you can’t help but want to take one home with you. From Flamangos, to shrimpanzees, you will also see some hippotatomuses, there was even a tacodile supreme (taco/crocodile), and a stampede of wildebeets. These were some of the zany yet loveable characters that made this movie a delight to watch. There are definite moments in the movie that scared my 5 year old son, especially when Flint and company encounters a giant spider cheeseburger with French fries for legs and sesame seed eyes. With an exceptional cast of characters we can all relate to, along with a light hearted storyline that brings food to life, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is fun for the whole family.
4 stars out of 5
Second Review by Jeremiah Scott
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 was one of two animated films that I was really excited to take my family to see this Fall. I really enjoyed the first one, it was fresh and enjoyable, and so my expectations were pretty high going into the sequel.
<bold>Review from Perspective 1: As a 30 something parent </bold>
If you didn’t see the original, do not let that fact dissuade you from seeing this one. They recap the entire first movie in the first 5 minutes of this movie, which is about half the amount of time it takes those of us who did catch the first one to realize this movie is not as good.
Aside from some vague Jurassic Park references and monkey poo jokes , the majority of the humor falls flat. The story was okay at best and extremely predictable. It didn’t tug at my heart strings at all, or teach me any life lessons, or cause me to laugh out loud at any part of the movie. The pacing seemed a bit slow at times and the animal/food combo name game wears thin quickly. On the upside there were some giggle worthy moments and it felt like they were taking shots at hipster companies like Apple throughout the movie, which I’m never adverse to.
Bottom line: I got a couple chuckles out of it and spent a little more time with the likable characters of Cloudy, which is essentially what I came to do. It’s not boring, or exciting… it just exists, which typically means I’m not angry I spent money to see it, but I’ll never invest time in watching it again. For keeping my kids entertained I gave it an extra .5, otherwise it would have been a 2 out of 5.
2.5 out of 5
PERSPECTIVE 2: From my 7 year old boy and 9 year old daughter
First, the most important fact for any kid: Neither of my kids were bored during this movie. If they become bored they become really fidgety in their chair and look absolutely bothered to be stuck in the theater, this did not happen in Cloudy.
They really loved the characters that were created to entertain their demographic; an incredibly cute strawberry named Berry and a monkey named Steve. There wasn’t anything particularly scary in this movie aside from a Tacodile that made my son jump when it roared, but there isn’t really anything I could see that would cause nightmares for even small children.
I asked them to compare this movie to other family movies they have seen so far this year: My 9 year old daughter said it was a lot better than Planes, as good as Turbo, but not nearly as awesome as Despicable Me 2. My 7 year old son said that both Turbo and Despicable Me 2 were better than this movie, but that Cloudy was better than Planes. Strangely neither could rate this film against Monsters University. When asked for a reason they said it wasn’t comparable and left it at that.
Bottom line: I asked them to rate it on a scale of really bad-bad-ok-good-awesome and they both answered it was just good, not awesome.
Just Good
