Film Review: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. Rated G. 95 minutes. Directed by Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn. Written John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, Erica Rivinoja.

Verdict: A sensational explosion of food, colour, character and laughs for the entire family.

Picking up where the fantastic Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) left off, this delightful sequel finds our obsessive young inventor Flint Lockwood (superbly voiced by Bill Hader) faced with the task of finding and destroying his food-making machine, which has not only survived the earlier attempt to destroy it, but is over-populating Swallow Falls (Flint’s island home) with foodimals.

Flint’s idol, celebrity inventor Chester V (Will Forte), warns him that these dangerous foodimals are learning how to swim, which will see them invade every nation around the world and destroy all the iconic landmarks – with Sydney’s Opera House and New York’s Statue of Liberty in line for destruction.

With delightful nods to Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park and Peter Jackson’s King Kong, the bravura island sequences are fantastic, with every food pun imaginable planted liberally throughout the action-packed script. Cameron and Pearn keep the story moving at a perfectly agreeable pace, and as one brilliantly characterised foodimal after another comes to life, the sinister intentions of Flint’s hero gradually begin to become clearer.

The dazzling creativity and inventiveness of the animation, combined with the infectious energy of the voice cast, ensures that the pace rarely sags – and when it does, it is so we can spend some quiet, contemplative time with Flint’s dad Tim (the excellent James Caan) and his new-found friends, a group of endearing pickles who learn to appreciate Tim’s passion for sardine fishing.

The sequel, as is often the case, benefits enormously from the return of creatives who brought their magic to the first film. This is most certainly the case with Mark Mothersbaugh’s perfectly spirited score and Justin Thompson’s lavish, colourful and absurdly characterful production design. And while you might never be able to look at the contents of a bag of marshmallows in quite the same way again, it is the zany Steve (Flint’s pet monkey, voiced by Neil Patrick Harris) who eventually wears his hero status to perfection.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.