Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 *****

Food alive! It’s the much-awaited sequel to the 2009 film that includes marauding cheeseburgers, shrimpanzees and a feast full of colourful silliness on the menu. The relief is it’s as funny, if not zanier than the first – complete with some of the worse puns this century (check out the trailer), thanks to some new direction from Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn. Meatballs 2 still has loyal inventor Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) tasked with saving the day, backed by his faithful girlfriend, intrepid TV reporter Sam Sparks (voiced by Anna Faris) and friends – even dad Tim (voiced by James Caan) comes along for the adventure and befriends some sardine-loving gherkins.

Flint has banished his Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator, or FLDSMDFR for short, to the sky after his hometown, Swallow Falls, is covered with food debris, following the hostile food weather. Still keen to invent something unique, he’s desperate to go work for his idol, celebrity tycoon inventor Chester V (voiced by Will Forte) – think Steve Jobs or Bill Gates in status and power.

Flint, Dad and friends are convinced to leave Swallow Falls while Chester V’s The Live Corp Company go in to clean up. Meanwhile, all are relocated, and Flint gets his dream job. However, Chester V has a more sinister plan in mind, and is searching for the FLDSMDFR for his own malevolent purposes. Flint soon learns his most infamous machine is still operational and churning out menacing food-animal hybrids.

There’s definitely something for everyone to enjoy here. Cloudy 2 does not disappoint and ups the bar in its visual cleverness, with living-and-breathing food forming a sort of Jurassic Park-style wilderness of imagination. Coupled with the visual awe are a crackpot script full of groan-inducing puns and the same bunch of loveable characters from the first film, all intrepid explorers this time, rallying together to defeat Chester V in the end. This puts a price on the value of friendship and loyalty.

Kids will love the bizarre food-animal hybrids and trying to figure out what they are made up of. Be warned: some of the hybrids are a tad scary for very young kids though (cue the Tacodile). That said a talking monkey called Steve (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris) would have them back in stitches in no time, as he hilariously does his own background clown show while the main plot progresses in the foreground. There is also a cute strawberry the gang pick up on the way. One of Flint’s new inventions explodes in a blast of party colour, which provides some of the biggest laughs, as does his free takeaway coffees, seemingly to mock our reliance on corporate coffee brands.

Those with kids need only think of TV series Jelly Jam in terms of the zippy characters – it all goes to further enhance the bonkers nature of Cloudy 2. It’s definitely the energy that brings a true uniqueness to Cloudy 2, and though we have already been overstuffed with food in the first film, the filmmakers have thought of new ways to cook up a storm and kept us satisfied again, complete with a brilliant animated action adventure.

5/5 stars

By @FilmGazer

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