Anyone who knows anything about me knows I absolutely adored Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. I thought it was an absolutely brilliant adaptation of the book, letting us not only see what happened before and after the food started raining, but also letting us get a great look at the repercussions of such an event on the fictional town. But it was more than that. It was an absolutely brilliant parody of disaster movies, such as Twister, Armageddon, and The Day After Tomorrow. That idea, to parody disaster movies in this adaptation of the famous children's book, is just brilliant. But my biggest fear was hearing that Chris Miller and Phil Lord, the awesome team responsible for the first film, was busy working on The LEGO Movie, and wasn't heading up the production of this film. Even more frightening was the terrifying realization that the team responsible for this sequel gave us The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, a horrendous film and one of my least favorites of the year so far.
With my standards set very high, I have to admit that the film kept me pretty darn happy. While it lost the original charm of perhaps being a bit amateur while also having such a respect for science fiction and disaster films in general, it maintained the same sense of humor. It was zany, a bit raunchy, but delivered in such a way that the adult audience members were laughing just as hard as the kids at jokes about "cutting the cheese" and a "BSUSB" (that one you'll get when you see the movie). It also had a pretty hilarious, if maybe a bit too soon, parody of a Steve Jobs-esque figure that really had me laughing.
The animation looked as good as I would have hoped, but kept the original's unique look and style fantastically. It looks like the team really knew the fans would want to see very little updating to the design style. The characters all looked and moved great, and had the same sense of silliness mixed with believability as people as the first film did. It was really satisfactory to compare to the original. Voice acting was absolutely up to par, with Will Forte taking a dominant role in the Steve Jobs parody, nailing a funny, easily trusted but hilariously twisted villain. Everyone else was awesome as always, and kept me laughing easily.
But my one sad criticism was the lack of parody. It felt like maybe this was trying to parody Jurassic Park, but was doing it almost out of necessity, half heartedly. Granted the rest of the film worked great comedically. But I would have loved to see a parody of Jurassic Park stand out a bit more. I would have also really loved, considering the basis for the characters to go back, a bit of parody of Predators, maybe even an Alien reference. Considering the film shows obvious adoration for sci-fi, this wouldn't have at all been out of place.
As expected, the score of this film is absolutely notable. The music written for the original was charming, funny in places, and incredibly appropriate as both parody and just awesome music. It was a huge score, really reflecting the awesome pans of great moments. But that being said, it simply doesn't have the same scope or necessity in this film as the original. And seeing as that is absolutely one of my favorite parts of the first film, I gotta dock it a bit for that.
All in all, I did enjoy this movie. But where it had its moments of brilliance, the story and lack of parody really made feel that this movie was little more than a movie of the quality of a middle of the road Dreamworks picture. That's nothing to frown upon, but I was certainly hoping for more. But who knows, you'll probably have fun with it.
Rank - 3/5
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