In 2009 Sony Pictures Animation, which up until that point had only made generic features like Open Season and Surf’s Up, delivered a refreshing, clever and genuinely hilarious pun-filled animation in the form of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. With a mix of silly and smart, it made people sit up and take notice of them and they went on to make the likes of Arthur Christmas, The Smurfs, Hotel Transylvania and now (the inevitable) Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. So does the sequel live up to the original? Predictably no but there’s still plenty there for fans of the first one to enjoy.
The story picks up literally minutes after the last one ended (and with a funny reference to that short time period, the relentless jokes begin) in which the island town of Swallow Falls was saved from Flint Lockwood’s (Bill Hader) “Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator” (or FLDSMDFR for short) which went out of control and caused a food storm.
In swoops Chester V (Will Forte), the CEO of science conglomerate Live Corp who evacuates the town’s inhabitants to sunny San Franjose, California in order to clean up the mess. But unbeknown to Flint, the FLDSMDFR survived the disaster and Chester V is secretly trying to locate it to use for profit. Six months later and now working for Live Corp, Flint is tasked with re-entering Swallow Falls after retrieval of the machine has failed. But against Chester’s orders, Flint invites along his girlfriend Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) and the rest of his friends. Once they arrive the gang discover that the FLDSMDFR has turned everything into giant food-animal hybrids.
The real strength of the first film, the thing that made it truly stand out from the animation crowd, was the level of wit and knowingness poured into the screenplay by Phil Lord and Chris Miller (who also directed it). The pun-heavy humour was an absolute blast to experience, hitting you with joke after joke to the point where it was almost hard to keep up. Even if a certain joke didn’t work for you, there was another one just around the corner to make up for that. The sequel goes for the same sort of thing and while the hit rate is far less successful this time around – undoubtedly to do with the fact that Lord and Miller didn’t return to write or direct – there’s still enough in there to make it worth a watch.
Most of the puns are transferred onto the food-animal hybrids at the centre of the adventure. While trying to find his once beloved FLDSMDFR, Flint and his friends have to battle the likes of Susheep, Tacodile Supremes, Shrimpanzees and many more which I won’t spoil here. They’re all jokes that work on a creative and intellectual level that ought to give the adults in the audience something to chuckle at even after the credits have rolled as well as just silly visuals for the whole family to enjoy.
Where the film falls most short of its predecessor, however, is in the emotional connection or lack thereof. The first one had a strong backbone to it involving Flint and his father (voiced by James Caan), how he’s too busy with his aspirations of being a great inventor and scientist than spending time with his father. It said a lot about respecting your elders and the place where you came from while at the same time fulfilling ones own potential – the kind of positive messages not often found in these types of films. The sequel unfortunately doesn’t have that sort of emotional anchor to it as the father-son storyline is pretty much abandoned in favour of playing up the more bombastic aspects.
That being said Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 still succeeds at what it sets out to do; be a fun and funny animated adventure. Did it absolutely need to be made? No and the film does suffer from “sequelitis” on occasion but it’s not enough to derail it. The film’s colourful visuals are a real sight to behold (it may even beat the first one in terms of the range things we have to marvel at) and the gags, sight and otherwise, are chucked at you in relentless fashion. Not all of them hit the target but it’s far more successful than most other animated fare released this year.
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Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is released in UK cinemas on October 25th.
