Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

File:Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.jpeg
***Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2*** is a 2013 American computer-animated science fiction comedy film produced by Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation, animated by Sony Pictures Imageworks, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. The sequel to 2009's *Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs* (which in turn was loosely based on Judi and Ron Barrett's book of the same name, however the film is not based on the book's sequel, *Pickles to Pittsburgh*), the film was directed by Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller returning as executive producers. It was released in the United States on September 27, 2013.

## Plot

His genius finally recognized by his idol Chester V, inventor Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) gets to join Chester's company, where he can work full-time on technologies to help mankind. However, Flint soon discovers that his most-famous machine, which turns water into food, is still operating but now creates animal/vegetable hybrids. With the fate of humanity in Flint's hands, he and his friends set out to save the world from tacodiles, shrimpanzees and other deliciously dangerous creatures.

## Good Qualities

1. It is a decent follow up to the first film. As it captures the imagination and thought of the original movie. And not just because it's plot was very similar (which can be seen as a bad quality due to most of the story arguably feeling rehashed from the original in spite of some major changes to some elements), but also because it has much of the original movie's sheer charm.
2. Even without Phil Lord and Chris Miller, Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn still did great jobs as the new directors.
3. Great and appealing animation that is a step up from the first film.
4. The voice acting is still great.
5. While mainly pointless to the actual story, the environmental message is used pretty well. As it doesn't actually feel shoved in at the last minute and like it was present for a large majority of the movie's runtime, considering L.I.V.E./E.V.I.L. Corp's intentions involving them.
6. Decent to good character designs, particularly for the foodimals. Who all have creative character designs and usages of the foods their made up of to make said designs.
7. The underpants lab scene is pretty memorable and hilarious.
8. Benjamin Bratt's character, Manny the cameraman gets more lines and has a larger role this time around.
9. The foodimals are an excellent new addition to the movie, and a creative new main food-related plot point for the movie caused FLDSMDFR (the original film's being food raining from the sky). This is *especially* including Barry, who's an adorable new comic relief for the movie (yes, they already have Brent and Steve, but Barry's still very likable, cute and funny).
10. Chester V, while he's not the best twist villain to be introduced in a film, does get the twist out of the way during the first 8 minutes and not at the last 10 minutes, which saves us a very poor ending and a villain with a weak and slapped-on-at-the-last-second motive (though his actual motive of greed driving him to commit the actions that he does could've been stronger, despite the fact that it's certainly better than him having no motive at all). Not to mention how he's an incredibly threatening villain for the movie, **especially** towards the end where he tries to turn Sam, Earl, Brent, and Steve into Food Bars for his corporation.
11. Kristen Schaal's character, Barb, is a very cute new addition, and is very funny too.
12. The soundtrack is solid once again.
13. The humor, while not as great in the first film, is spot on for the most part.
14. All the characters are still charming and hilarious as they were in the first film.
15. The film does a great take on monster films like Jurassic Park with the food creatures.
16. **Nwoo!**

## Bad Qualities

1. Flint has been somewhat flanderized here, going from a well meaning and dedicated inventor who is determined to give food to his island into an incredibly naïve wannabe thinkquanaut who will do anything to impress Chester V without the concerns of his friends. Plus, there are two scenes where he screams for nearly *ten seconds long*.
	* He's still a good laughing stock regardless if intentional or not.
2. Terry Crews, while he does a good job as Earl and is by no means bad, is considered to be inferior to Mr. T.
3. Tim Lockwood's role has been greatly diminished.
4. A few elements seem rehashed from the first film, such as about 35% of the plot and the villain, Chester V, is considered to be the same as Mayor Shelbourne from the first movie, but he is indeed rubbish with zero explanation of how he was.
	* Speaking about Chester V, he seems like a clone of Charles F. Muntz from *Up* and Guy Gagne from *Turbo* (which the latter movie was released two months before this movie was released in the same year), as they appear like the protagonist's childhood idol only to be revealed as the villain.
5. It never explains how the FLDSMDFR survived its presumed destruction.
6. Plotholes, such as Chester V's food bars being a popular thing in town while Flint was a kid, even though it was shown in the previous movie that the only food was sardines.

## Reception

*Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2* received mixed to positive reviews from critics and audiences, being deemed inferior to its predecessor. On review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 71%, based on 120 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The site's consensus reads: "While not as clever or inventive as its predecessor, *Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2* compensates with enough dazzling visuals to keep younger viewers entertained.". Another aggregator, Metacritic, gave the film a score of 59 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

## Trivia

* The scene where Flint looses the competition to an Australian inventor who shares the same name of his had the announcer state that he came from an island, and since he referred to the Australian-Flint, it meant the announcer considered Australia an island because it was surrounded by water, though Australia is a medium-sized country that's too big to be just an island.