When your mother told you not to play with food, she probably didn’t realise how fun it could be. For starters, just consider the number of puns you could make with what you eat, that are served up in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. From “There’s a leek in the boat!” to describing their mission as “easy as…” and seeing a gigantic pie ahead, you’re forced to chuckle at some of the things this sequel to the  original animated movie gets up to.

Never mind if you’re unacquainted with the 2009 movie about a geeky inventor Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) who saves the economy of his small sardine-fishing town Swallow Falls by creating a machine that turns the water in rain clouds into any food you desire. Goodbye world hunger, you think, but too much of a good thing, as we know, is a bad idea. So when his “Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator” (FLDSMDFR for short) goes into overdrive and starts raining down monstrous servings of pasta and creating literally a food tornado, Flint, his pet talking monkey Steve (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris), his girlfriend, Samantha Sparks (voiced by Anna Faris) and his childhood rival have to destroy the invention that catapulted him to fame. All this is quickly introduced in this movie.

We return to see that the townsfolk resettle in San Francisco so The Live Corp Company can begin their cleanup operations at their devastated island. Lockwood’s elated at getting a job in the company of inventors, as it was founded by his boyhood idol, Chester V (voiced by Will Forte).

At work, Lockwood humiliates himself and that’s when Chester V gives Lockwood a chance to redeem himself – by offering him a mission to save his town, now overrun by “foodimals”, a mutation of animals and food created by Lockwood’s FLDSMDFR, which somehow manage to escape destruction. Along with his  father and friends, he returns to Swallow Falls to save mankind as these ferocious creatures threaten to swim across to other countries.

As before, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 leans on its characters telling similar types of jokes and performing gags that are understood across all ages. The names of these foodimals include “watermelophant”, “mosquitoast” and “tacodile supremes”) causing you to chortle and hide your head in your hands. Although this is the second time you’re introduced to the characters, there has been no development that will help you understand them and their motivations better, but perhaps that’s to be expected of cartoon characters. Younger audiences are unlikely to mind though.

Screenwriters John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein and Erika Rivinoja deserve some commendation for the nicely spaced punch lines in the film. Director Cody Cameron, who has directed Open Season 3 and a voice actor himself, is aided by his skillful use of visuals and body language to help push the storyline and create awkwardly amusing situations, keeping the fickle viewer humored and entertained.

The animation team of this franchise deserves kudos as well with immaculate detailing of the lush forest in the background; much thought was clearly given on the color palette as well as helping characters stand out from the brightly colored production, in the newly foodimal-infested Swallow Falls.

In spite of its flaws (this UrbanWire writer could just be nitpicky), Cloudy 2 is still recommended for its adorable interactions between foodimal and human, its rubbery and characters, as well as the moral messages that remind us to let the children inside out once in a while, and that material wants may not be the only important thing in your life.

Rating: 3.5/5
Release Date: Oct 10, 2013
Runtime: 95 minutes
Language: English
Censorship Rating: G
Genre: Comedy, Family
Director: Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn
Main Actors: Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Will Forte, Andy Samberg, Benjamin Bratt, Neil Patrick Harris