“Cloudy 2” Comes With Extra Cheese

About midway through the action of Sony Pictures Animation’s new “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2,” the main protagonist, Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader), has a brief exchange with another character that is strikingly indicative of the audience’s viewing experience.  “How is that even possible?” the character asks Flint as they make their way across the abandoned island from the first film, now inhabited by animal-food hybrids. Flint responds, “It’s best that we don’t think about it,” and he couldn’t be more right. “Cloudy 2” is definitely a film better appreciated the less it’s dissected. And to be fair, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, it is a children’s movie, and though recent animated kids’ flicks such as “Wreck-It Ralph” have set a high standard of being able to entertain both children and the adults that bring them, “Cloudy 2” does a fine job of amusing its target audience despite a simple plot and even simpler humor.

The sequel, like the original, is based on the children’s picture book of the same name, though the relation seems to be in name only. Actually, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2” has very little to do with food-themed weather, the basis of both its predecessor and the book. Instead, the movie picks up where the last one left off, after Flint’s food-weather-producing machine (the “Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator,” comically shortened to the unpronounceable acronym “FLDSMDFR”) triggers a food storm that forces the whole town to relocate. Soon thereafter, Flint is summoned by the famed scientist Chester V (Will Forte), who informs him that the “FLDSMDFR” is still acting up. This time, instead of just producing food-weather, the machine is spawning living food-animals that are learning to swim in order to travel to New York City and destroy the Statue of Liberty. Again, don’t think about it too much. So Flint springs into action, gathering together a rag-tag team of friends, family members and one very enthusiastic and very masculine local police officer, Earl Devereaux (Terry Crews). The rest of the movie chronicles the gang’s travels to the dangerous food island, their attempts to shut down the “FLDSMDFR,” their realization of the importance of friendship, and one heavily foreshadowed plot twist. It’s a plot that only a child could love, and thankfully for the audience, it’s pretty easy to ignore.

One thing that isn’t so easily overlooked is the amount of food puns employed by the film. Sometimes they’re downright groan-inducing, with lines like “cut the cheese” and “holy guacamole,” while at other times they’re indisputably clever. For example, a leek frequently appears aboard the characters’ ship, causing them to exclaim “there’s a leek in my boat!” When it isn’t dishing out the dinner puns, “Cloudy 2” goes straight for the admittedly funny physical and bathroom humor guaranteed to make any fifth grader keel over. Though the jokes don’t always land with the rest of the audience, when they do, it’s often because of the outstanding delivery by the voice actors. In particular, Officer Earl, a Mr. T-esque character who was actually voiced by Mr. T in the first film, will undoubtedly be one of the audience’s favorites, mostly due to a genuinely humorous voice performance by Crews. In addition to Crews, Bill Hader and Andy Samberg also please in their performances as Flint Lockwood and his bully-turned-friend, Brent McHale.

The voice actors are great, but it is the art direction of “Cloudy 2” that shines the brightest. The film creates an entire ecosystem composed exclusively of food. Among these food creations are crashing coconut milk waterfalls, towering cheese mountains, and most enjoyably, a whole host of food-animal hybrids. These often cute, always impressive “foodimals” populate the island and interact with Flint and his friends during their journey. The 3D viewing of the film only adds to the artistry of the island and largely avoids the items-flying-in-your-face gimmicks of many children’s 3D films. In one particular chase scene, the island is nothing short of breathtaking, with its creative foodimals and food landscape advancing toward and folding away from the viewer. In fact, the third dimension causes the island to bear a strong resemblance to a food-themed version of Pandora, the highly celebrated setting of James Cameron’s “Avatar.”

What “Cloudy 2” lacks in plot, depth, and sometimes writing, it often makes up for in artistry and likeability. Though it certainly doesn’t master the duality of maturity and lightheartedness exemplified by the likes of “Toy Story” and “Up,” it will almost certainly please the little ones, and that’s what it was made to do. Along the way, it throws in a quick lesson on the importance of being kind to friends and offers up some really imaginative imagery, a principal reason for the success of the original picture book.  By today’s standards especially, that’s not bad at all for a children’s film.