Runtime: 1 hour, 35 minutes
Rating: PG
Directors: Cody Cameron, Kris Pearn
Quick Impressions:
My four-year-old daughter and I are currently having a love affair with Scranimals, a book of whimsical poems about an island full of adorable hybrid animal/vegetable creatures, written by Jack Prelutsky and illustrated by Peter Sis. Since we checked out Scranimals from the library last week, we’ve hardly been able to put it down. I mean who can resist the cuteness of the perfectly puffy hippopotamushrooms or the wiles of the sinisterly slippery bananaconda?
So even though we were a little late dragging ourselves to Cloudy 2 (it’s been a busy few weeks around our house), we saw this charming animated sequel at just the right time for us. Now we have a whole new stable of hybrids vying for our sighs of, “Ohhh! How cute!” Hippopotamushrooms are great, but Cloudy 2 gives us a brand new alternative treat—hippotatomuses (basically walking baked potatoes with sour creamy mouths, chive teeth, and a pat of butter for the tongue). And even though no creature could beat the sound of the bananaconda, the bananostriches offered by Cloudy 2 do look pretty fantastic.
Ordinarily the phrase, “This film is a visual feast,” sounds rather (perhaps pleasingly) pretentious. But in this case, it’s the literal truth. (At least figuratively.) (What I mean is, we literally see walking food, but we can’t actually eat it—though it feeds our imaginations—so what’s going on here is at least half metaphor, a marriage of…)
You know I’m just going to quit while I’m ahead and say more plainly that this movie looks really cool and is lots of fun to watch because of the island full of big, colorful, walking food creatures. What you see in the trailer is what the movie cheerfully delivers—an explosion of fun looking food (in 3D!!!—if you pay for that, which we didn’t).
So even though the movie has its weaknesses, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 delivers everything it promises and managed to keep our family of four pleasantly entertained with its cute diversions for the entirety of its 95 minute runtime.
And, parents, if like ours your kids liked Cloudy 2, then you should check out Scranimals and prepare yourself for a clever cuteness overload. Trust me, you and your kids will love it.
The Good:
The actual story of Cloudy 2 is pretty weak and feels a bit contrived, but that doesn’t really matter. The winning cast of the original film returns (except Mr. T. He’s been mysteriously replaced by Terry Crews), and they’re all still quite game and likable this time around. They’re also joined by the ridiculously recognizable voices of Will Forte (who plays the villain Chester V) and the ubiquitous Kristen Schaal (seriously, what kid-friendly project these days doesn’t feature Schaal? Children are going to be hearing her voice in their dreams/nightmares. To be clear, I love her, and she has a great, distinctive voice, but wow she is in everything lately!).
The jokes are plentiful (really almost overabundant), and a surprising amount of the spoken humor is clearly targeted at adults. (I’m not talking about anything crude or suggestive. I just mean little kids are not going to roll their eyes and scoff, “Can you believe those coffee choices?”)
The movie excels at silliness. Probably the funniest characters (those who got the biggest, most consistent laughs from audience members of all ages) are Steve the monkey (who “speaks” in computer generated monosyllables) and Barry the talking strawberry (who sounds like what you’d expect from a three-year-old Eric Cartman if somebody force fed him pixie sticks, stuck a bag over his head, twirled him around in the dark about seven hundred times, and then stuffed him into a strawberry suit and yelled, “Speech!”). (Barry is actually voiced by Cody Cameron, Pinocchio in the Shrek movies.)
One of the best things about Cloudy 2 is its transparently honest theatrical trailer. If you liked what you saw in the preview, then you might as well buy a ticket. This movie promises a bright, colorful island full of magical, adorable food creatures, and once the gang heads back to Swallow Falls to battle food monsters, the movie really picks up and delivers.
Best Musical Sequence:
Steve was by far my favorite character in the movie, followed closely by Flint’s dad.
(Oddly enough, they were the two characters whose voices I could not remember from the original or place with my ear/brain. Once I saw in the closing credits that Neil Patrick Harris voices Steve, then heard his voice again in a mid-credits scene, I thought, Of course! That’s obviously Neil Patrick Harris! Why didn’t I recognize Steve’s voice?
I think my failure to recognize James Caan is a lot more forgivable. With so many SNL alums, comedians, and TV stars in the cast, you really don’t immediately ask yourself, “Where did I hear this voice before? Was it in…The Godfather?” Nobody guesses that, right? I didn’t.) (In that scene with the Italian food, they probably should have thrown in a cannoli joke.)
As Flint’s steely dad Tim Lockwood, James Caan is pretty brilliant in this movie. Of course, part of the joke is the way he’s drawn and animated. (Those eyebrows remind me of Sully the Muppet from the Sesame Street of my childhood.) But the vocal performance is also just charming, and the writing in Tim’s sequences seems sharper than elsewhere.
The bit with the pickles just really won my heart, particularly the fantastically weird little song on the fishing boat.
And of course, all this sets up one of the best (and most subtly delivered) jokes in the entire movie. We must be kind, the movie tells us. We don’t want to hurt any living, sentient creature—no matter how delicious it might be when it holds still. We couldn’t possibly eat cute little marshmallows or gibberish talking pickles. The pickles are our friends, so let’s do the humane thing—and teach them to fish!!!!!!!!!
That way, everybody wins, and no creature is harmed, right? Right???? (Seriously, that’s my favorite joke in the whole movie.)
Funniest Scene:
The first act of the movie is pretty intense and stressful—if you’re a four-year-old. While the rest of us were chuckling and bearing with the movie indulgently, my daughter was getting seriously upset by the machinations of the villain and the interpersonal conflict she saw brewing. Where were the cute vegimals? Why was Flint getting himself entangled with a dangerous oddball who clearly had some wicked scheme up his sleeves? And (did I mention this?) where were the cute vegimals?
About ten minutes in, and she was whispering in torment, “This isn’t what I was hoping to see. I don’t think I can watch this movie anymore. I’m not sure that I can stand to watch this!”
Then came the scene with Steve and the magic candle, and suddenly her moans morphed into hysterical giggles. The rest of us were giggling, too (though perhaps less robustly). That candle bit goes on a long, long time, and honestly, I would have been delighted to watch it even longer.
Best Scene:
Our four-year-old often has giggling fits during silly comedies. But nonstop giggling from her ten-year-old brother is rare.
Our son did just that, however, during the Braveheart scene featuring Barry (Berry? You know, the berry, the one who talks like a dazed, miniature Cartman?). (I call it the Braveheart scene, but it’s pretty much a generic rallying of the troops.)
After the movie, he told me, “The part with the strawberry interpreting for him was my favorite.” I was like, “Really? I had no idea.” It was pretty funny. I was laughing, too.
Honestly this is a fantastic scene for many reasons. Yes, it’s funny, but there’s also a shocking revelation (well, I mean, temper your expectations, and remind yourself this is a cartoon about talking food creatures). This moment is really nicely done, so the scene gets my vote for overall strongest in the movie.
In woo! In woo! In woo!
Best Scene Visually:
There’s so much to love here. The return to Swallow Falls is appropriately epic. It’s like Jurassic Park with walking cheeseburgers. Who doesn’t love that? (The cheese spiders were extra menacing to my daughter who for some reason has never accepted the idea that beef is edible.)
The rock candy mountain looks great, too, and I really love the marshmallow man floating down the river.
But the best scene? To me, one stands apart. Near the end of the movie we get indisputable visual proof that you just can’t have your own back. Humans are a social species. We all need each other. That this essential “moral of the story” is demonstrated so effectively and with such elegance visually makes the moment a standout.
Best Action Sequence:
The initial attack of the cheese spider has its charms, but there’s a moment near the end that had my stepson laughing and my daughter cheering wildly. After the movie, as the credits rolled, she cited this moment as her favorite in the film and squealed enthusiastically, “It was a happy ending, after all! It was the happiest ending!”
The Negatives:
Will Forte has never inspired me to laugh with wild abandon. Co-stars Andy Samberg and (especially) Bill Hader are two of my favorite recent SNL alums, but for me Forte’s a guy who too often is weird when he should be normal and normal when he should be weird. He’s great with one-liners (and particularly great at making apparently innocuous statements sound like one-liners), but often he plays a character so much weirder than those around him that it’s hard to suspend disbelief while he’s in the scene.
Though math is not my strong suit, I can say with confidence that I find Forte funny about 63 percent of the time, and while I will grant you that this percentage makes Forte much funnier than your average Joe on the street, that 47 percent can be very, very, very tedious.
That said, however, I must admit that in this particular case Forte’s performance was what I liked best about Chester V.
In Cloudy 2, the villain is by far the weakest part of the movie, but to be honest, the fact that Chester V is weak and annoying is not at all Will Forte’s fault. In fact, if anything, Forte makes the character bearable through excellent delivery of some shouldn’t-really-be one-liners. (He has a wonderful line near the very end, and gets the biggest laugh at the end of a fantastic argument between Kristen Schaal and Anna Farris that sounds like the set up for a joke—“A meteorologist and an orangutan walk into a bar…”)
What I don’t like about Chester V is the way he’s shoe-horned into the story. It’s like they really needed a threatening antagonist for the movie, so they just threw in some crazy bad guy as if he’d always been part of the story. The set up feels rushed, clumsy, forced. It’s just not done with any elegance. Now, this is a movie for children and the big selling point is the cute/ outlandish vegimals, so this misstep doesn’t really matter much. But it still annoyed me. Plus Chester V is a character who is much funnier for parents than children, and since his particular brand of villainy is really quite stressful for children, this is not a good imbalance.
There are amusing aspects to Chester V (and most of them come from Forte’s performance), but I still disliked the character and the way he was used overall.
You know who would have made a better evil scientist villain? Steven Hawking. You know who should have outwitted him? Steve. (I’m serious. Hawking has a great sense of humor. He’s done The Simpsons several times. He might have done it. Maybe he’ll do Cloudy 3. They should ask him.)
Also—okay actually I’m torn here—but it seems like poor use of resources to have performers with the proven comedy chops of Bill Hader and Anna Farris playing the straight, boring characters in the movie. (I say I’m torn because maybe for Hader and Farris it’s a refreshing change of pace. Maybe they’re looking for more dramatic roles to convince casting directors they can actually act.) Andy Samberg also feels almost wasted in these movies. It’s nice to hear him, but the part doesn’t actually ask much of him (although I loved the enthusiasm of his final line).
I’m also very curious about what happened to Mr. T., but Terry Crews is funny and plays the part very well (the part with the tear made me smile even though I’ve seen it hundreds of times in the trailer), so this is less a complaint than a lingering question.
I also found the bungee underwear scene curiously off-putting, but if you’re a young boy watching in 3D, you might reasonably feel quite differently.
Overall:
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is really cute and funny. I’m pretty sure it’s aware that it’s as inconsequential as a Happy Meal. (That’s probably a misleading comparison since science has shown that regular Happy Meal consumption can have devastating consequences.) But anyway, my point is that if you want to watch fast food killing people on the big screen, this bright, colorful, happy, silly movie has got to be one of the most fun ways of accomplishing that.
The overall writing may not be as sharp and focused as in the first movie, but the jokes are still funny (relentlessly silly, often quite clever, sometimes absurd), and the cast is enchanting. For young children, there’s also a very good moral to the story. (Actually, it’s a good lesson for everyone, but children tend to follow the advice of heavy-handed programming more willingly. Adults are just like, “Whatever. Now I’m going to go eat a hundred cheeseburgers and then swing by Starbucks on my way to the Apple store where I plan to buy all the cool stuff. ALONE!”)
My whole family of four enjoyed Cloudy 2, and even though we saw it late, it’s still in theaters, so grab a ticket now, and don’t miss your chance.