Nonstop Movies: ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2’
The makers of “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2” must have had a great time coming up with catchy puns for all the mutant creatures that are half animal, half food such as watermelephants, flamangoes, mosquitoasts, tacodiles and shrimpanzees. Wait a minute, which part of “shrimpanzee” is the food and which part is the animal? I’ll leave that one up to the imagination.
Speaking of imagination, I really wish that the creative talent behind this film really stretched theirs a bit further. Besides the clever mutant names, there really isn’t much else memorable about this sequel to the successful 2009 original film. Taking place soon after the events of the first film, Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) is asked to work for Live Corp, a very Apple-esque company led by a very Steve Jobs-esque inventor named Chester V (Will Forte). Chester has plans to launch a new food bar to the masses, but Flint’s food machine is somehow still operable, so he first needs to destroy it so it won’t decrease the demand for his product. Flint idolizes Chester and his company, so he blindly follows orders, dragging his friends along with him, not realizing that their real purpose is to create more profit for Live Corp. Hmm… why does that sound so familiar? I can’t wait to get my hands on the new iPhone 5S by the way.
Not only is the story flimsy, but the animation is pretty stale as well, especially in 3D. There should have been plenty of opportunity to create some elaborate sequences since the only limitations for the food mutants and their new landscape was the creative minds behind the film but everything just sort of messily blended all together, resulting in eye slop instead of eye candy.
But I’m obviously not the target audience for this film and my two hanai nieces loved it. So if your kids don’t mind too mochi silliness, they sushi this film. But I doubt it’ll be butter than the first one.
“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2,” 95 minutes, is Rated PG and opens in theaters Friday.
