Film Review - Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 picks up where the first film left off and finds Flint Lockwood (voice of Bill Hader) working in the company of his idol Chester V (Will Forte) but his old home is now putting out food/animal hybrids that could threaten the world so Chester wants Flint to stop it but this won't be easy.

I went into this movie very excited as I really liked the first film and when I saw the preview for this movie it looked like it would be a very promising follow up, did it deliver the goods?

Very much so, I really had a lot of fun watching this movie, it made me smile for most of it's running time and the cast were all very funny for the most part, especially Anna Faris who finally seems to have a decent role in a film following all the Goldie Hawn esque characters she's had to play over the years, Terry Crews was a fun replacement for Mr. T who sadly declined to return for this film but I didn't notice the change while watching the film and all of the Foodimals on screen are quite a sight, especially the Strawberry babies, the Cheeseburger Spider with French Fry legs, the Banana Dolphins and more.

The animation in the film is also really well done, showing a fluidity and style that you used to see in hand drawn animation but is sadly rarely seen in Computer Animation so it was nice to know that it is still possible.

But sadly the film lets itself down in the villain department, every time Chester came on screen I felt like the film stopped so he could have his screen time and also his plot wasn't all that interesting, just the all too familiar corporate takeover story but unlike 99.9% of films I see, I won't knock this film down for it as I was having too much fun watching it to care all that much but still it does hurt the film.

So all in all, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is great fun and is up to the task of living up to the first film, the upcoming Frozen will have its work cut out ahead of it if it's going to top this film as my favourite animated movie of the year, 3 and a half out of 5.