L'Île des Miam-nimaux : Tempête de boulettes géantes 2

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, answering all of those questions from the end of #1, is silly fun. Which is a good thing, seeing as how it's a cartoon aimed at little kids. And me, naturally. This was right up my alley.

It's a simple story. That wonderful machine created by Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) that bestowed food falling from the sky for the island town of Swallow Falls has been deactivated, thanks to a plethora of food and a desire for people not to be harmed by chunks of sustenance dropping on them. Now the island must be cleaned up, and the corporation Live Corp., run by Flint's idol Chester V (Will Forte) gets the contract. The town's citizens are relocated temporarily while Flint realizes his lifelong dream and becomes an employee at Live Corp. The problem? It seems that the food created by the machine has become...sentient. And it's fighting back! Flint and his friends - Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), cameraman Manny (Benjamin Bratt), policeman Earl (Terry Crews, stepping in for Mr. T), Chicken Brent (Andy Samberg), Steve the Monkey, and Flint's dad Tim (James Caan) - head back to the island. The mission: locate the machine and shut it down. But it seems that Chester and his orangutan assistant Barb (Kristen Schaal) have other plans, plans too devious to mention in detail here, lest your eyes be singed.

Anyway, here's the cool thing. The sentient foodstuffs are basically tangible portmanteaus of food and animal, like the wild tacodile, the watermelephant, the pie-thon, the cheespider, and the bananostrich. Luckily, most of these creatures were benign to begin with. I mean, there aren't any lions or tigers or bears or scorpions. Now, setting aside the question of what these Foodimals would eat, since they themselves are made up of food, these are creative inventions. Almost makes you want to buy one or two as stuffed animals.

Meanwhile, back at the boat, Tim bonds with sentient pickles over fishing. I swear, I am so glad this movie was rooted in reality. I mean, sure, pickles probably couldn't cast that well, but still - kudos are deserved here.

This is about Flint's needing to choose between his idol and his friends and family, between doing what he knows will help his inventing career and what he knows is right. It's about being reminded about those closest to you, lest you disdain their influence. It's also about being able to change one's mind in light of new evidence, and it's about not killing anything that has eyes and/or talks. It's also about 95 minutes.

Hader is terrific, as is the supporting cast, even when they're not given much to do but run and hide. Or cackle evilly. I was more impressed with the vocalizations of the Foodimals, such as Barry the strawberry or the pickles, voiced by codirector Cody Cameron. Kind of thought Frank Welker had stumbled on set.

No meatballs, ironically enough.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Uno was a surprise success. It took great leaps away from the source material, but managed to be cute, funny, colorful, and heart-warming.

Well, at least the sequel is three of these things.

Cloudy 2 is filled with tongue-in-cheek puns, and honestly has some of the best 3D animation I've seen. Its true! Its better than the first, with attention to detail. All the food animals are bright, creative, and adorable.

The movie is just as fun as the last, perhaps even more...but, like most animated sequels, the plot and character take a nosedive. The first focused on love, inspiration, and family relationship. The second is the typical friendship shtick and has a strangely pro-vegan message. I mean, some of these food animals have human-like intelligence, but a lot are no different from chickens and cattle. :V

The characters are worse-off from the original. Brent, Manny, and Earl have no role in this film. Manny and Earl were at least funny, but Brent just spouted his "UH OH!" shtick. Flint and Sam are still friends, but it doesn't even seem like they're dating. Chester V is a stereotypical villain, although his physical, noodley actions were amusing.

If your looking for humor, cutesy things, or something to entertain the kids, its fine. The story isn't good, but its tolerable enough. If you're looking for the relationships the first one had, you might want to skip this.

I'm resigned to the fact that "0 out of 124 people" will find the following review useful (in the world of IMDb, dissenting opinions are usually regarded as useless - quite odd, as I always enjoy reading reviews that challenge my thoughts on a film). Anyway, here goes: If the original Cloudy was like one of those Heston Blumenthal dishes that's both outrageously odd and utterly brilliant - I don't know, perhaps fried egg with jam and Rice Krispies - then this misguided, saccharine sequel is a pointless pudding, an overly sweet dessert that makes you sick up a bit of the main course.

Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) lands a job with a shady corporation run by his childhood hero - funny how he wasn't mentioned in the first film - who decides to send Flint back to his home island for the post-first-film clean-up, whilst playing him off against his friends. The island itself is now inhabited by living beings made of food, including a cute little strawberry with the voice of Eric Cartman, a spider comprising Big Mac and fries, and a taco-dile that spits vegetables everywhere. Are you sure this script is ready? The problem, no doubt, is that Phil Lord and Chris Miller were only on hand to provide the story and exec-produce, with former South Park staffer Erica Rivinoja botching the writing job, and Cody Cameron (Shrek, Madagascar) and Cloudy contributor Kris Pearn taking care of the rest.

There are a few good jokes - the fishing trip, the translation, Steve the monkey generally - but it's largely overbearing sentiment, food creatures with punny names (essentially a Twitter hashtag that got out of hand), and Steve Jobs-based villainy, a sort of Robots/Wreck-It Ralph/Jurassic Park III hybrid, with a minimum of heart, wit and invention. I wanted something as anarchic and genuinely original as the first movie. Instead, I got a film that's not only aimed at kids, but doggedly conventional, and insultingly predictable, both in its re-treading of old ground and its telegraphing of old jokes.

It's the most disappointing movie I've seen for a couple of years at least.

Kind of what I expected but even better.

My kids saw and loved the first one (many times over). Then when my son saw a trailer for #2 he literally begged to see it today the 2nd day after opening.

The plot is a bit cliché but then not like it detracted from anything. The sights and sounds, the funny little cute things, etc., is what it is all about.

A point in about 20min in my younger son turned to me and said "I like this part!", and he really laughed a lot. I felt it's aimed mainly for kids, but then probably pretty enjoyable for adults too. Like they sprinkle in some humor in places that only teenagers and adults would get.

A fun film for the family, highly recommended.

I love animations and visual effects so I love these films. The story isn't excellent but I don't care so much is these kind of films. Pixar is absolutely better in this, of course, but I love all these films, so I liked a lot also this one. The most thing I like in Pixar's films is that they aren't for children. In fact there're a lot of quotes that a child can't understand. Furthermore, the animations are really great, fantastic, gorgeous, something that a child can't realise and like totally. Although, there're a lot of funny moments but it's not enough for a better vote, so it's a 7, thanks to the animations. They are really well done, and also the ideas of the food-animals, or foodimals like the film said, but the story is just a 6. The first one was better, but I suggest to you to watch both of them, if you like animation films.