Cons: I am not going to lie to you. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs isn’t my favorite animated flic.
I kept getting confused by the story- especially because I hadn’t seen the first CLoudy with a Chance of Meatballs film. It took me a while to figure out what had happened in the first movie. After a long time, I kinda got a glimpse that Flint Lockwood’s father was a technophobe, that Flint made a cool machine (the FLDSMDFR) which made food from water in the past, that Chester V was the villain in the past movie, now he turned Flint’s invention as a way to get rid of foodanimals on another island ( or rather turn them into food bars), but he has deceived Flint in the process by asking his help in destroying the FLDSMDFR, which unknownst to Flint will end up destroying the foodanimals/stop the production of foodanimals.
In other movies, say Toy Story 3, I hadn’t seen the original Toy Story but I still understood Toy Story 3 ( I have seen the original movie since). I felt like I was dropped in the story of Andy going off to college and the toys’ fears and fates in relation to this event. Maybe I didn’t understand a few original Toy Story references, but I understood the movie rather cohesively.
They don’t have that subtle emotional humor that some other animated flics have had. In the movie Bolt, there’s a scene where Rhino the hamster waves from the top of the truck to a college student in the passenger seat of another car. The student looks stunned and confused. Later, at an RV park, the student is about to bite into a sandwich and he sees Rhino looking at him again! The student looks befuddled by this, yet is silent about with his surprise. These subtle hints of humor.. are not really found in this movie.
I also didn’t find too much winning dialogue in this film. In Toy Story 3, as Mr. Potato Head is trying to drive the barbie car with the other characters in tow A bit later, long-legged hottie Barbie hops in. He is so attracted by her and simultaneously conflicted he says, “I am a married spud. I am a married spud,” in his rapid Brooklyn (possibly Jewish) accent! This is not found in this movie too much.
One thing I have noticed with animated movies these days- is that the sequels can often be just as good as their prequels. The Toy Story movies, The Shrek movies, the Monsters’ INC movies etc.
WIth a lot of “actual people-actors” i.e non-animated films, the same has not always been true. Yes, the Godfather franchise with the original and its sequel Godfather part II will go down in film history as classics. But if you look at other films ( some lesser quality) like say.. Sex in the City, Legally Blonde, Wall Street.. and compare them to their sequels, Sex in the City 2, Legally Blonde 2, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the sequels were of much less quality.
In my opinion, the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs franchise seems to be following the lesser-quality-sequel-pattern of films mentioned in the paragraph above.
Pros: The illustration in this movie is phenomenal. The color is especially vivid and so, so rich.
I also thought the foodanimals’ names and creation were amazing: Shrimpanzees, tacodile, hippotatumus, peanut butter and jellyfish. I cannot get their images out of my head.
Some of the voices were great. I liked Flint’s father’s voice! Speaking about the Godfather franchise, James Caan ( who played Sunny/Santino) does Flint’s dad’s voice!
I will end with saying that the movie is great if you have seen Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs- then the movie will be fine for you… because it doesn’t take you a while to figure out what happened in the first movie.
2.75 out of 5 stars
