Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 - Movie Review

The first installment of this animated kid's series was just downright fantastic. It was hilarious, unique (as proven by the odd title), and overall a very rounded family film. The first one ended solidly and I didn't really consider the fact that they'd make a second one. But sure enough, when Hollywood sees that something made a lot of money, they will find a way to milk all the cash that they can. However, there's usually an obvious group of sequels that were made simply for money or for some that actually focus on quality. This one kind of falls right in the middle.

Let's start off with the plot. It's nothing really new or exciting, and this whole sequel was definitely not necessary. However, that's not to say it wasn't enjoyable, but rather the first one would've been fine on its own. The food puns were extremely creative though, I gotta admit. There were Water-melaphants (Watermelon elephants),  Mosquitoast (mosquitoes with bread wings), and the Taco-Dile Supreme (a huge taco monster.) The kid at heart in me definitely laughed at every single food pun. But the plot itself is a bit predictable.

The voice acting was basically perfect for an animated film. Something you really have to do in kid's movies is to make your character the most over-the-top or as unique as possible, and each voice actor did an incredible job with the material they were given.

My main problem with this movie was that I grew bored off and on. I feel like this project was just sort of put together as a last minute thought to boost ticket sales for Sony movies. The creative minds that went into the animation and writing were great and they added a lot to make the movie a unique experience. However, when you can sense that there just wasn't as much passion in the sequel as there was in the original, watching it becomes very tedious.

Overall I'd recommend it for a movie night with some friends (if your friends are still cool enough to enjoy kid's movies that is) but if you're looking for the best animated sequel of the year, make your way over to Despicable Me 2. I wanted to like this movie a lot more, but it ended up being pretty average, with only a few things that would put it above some other animated movies of 2013. B-