Meatballs Oh Meatballs!
by Jeanette Tan & Shirley Tay
Living up to their reputation of producing stellar animated films, Sony Pictures Animation recently released the second installment of the adventures of our resident scientist Flint Lockwood with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (Cloudy 2). Cloudy 2 was just as visually stunning-if not more so-than its predecessor and was a feast for the eyes.
The movie begins by taking the audience on a trip down memory lane, by giving a brief playback of whatever that happened in the first film. Picking up from where the first film ended, Flint Lockwood finds his happy ending in a newfound girlfriend, a group of unlikely friends and his hero status as the one who stopped a food catastrophe (which, ironically enough, was created by him).
The main thrust of the movie sparks off from the recruitment of Flint by his childhood idol, Chester V, the super-inventor and CEO of Live Corps. Making use of his naivety and desperation to prove himself, Chester tasks Flint to find and destroy the FLDSMDFR, which survived the explosion in the first film. Flint readily takes on the task only to realize the food-making machine he invented has returned to create an entire island of living food-animal hybrids.
From shrimp-anzees to apple pie-thons, Flint and his pals set out on a deliciously dangerous adventure to take on the food hybrids and find the machine to save their hometown.Cleverly inserted puns and elaborate flourishes of animation provided for a few giggles and sights of wonder. Although the movie lacks the element of surprise and its storyline is a little predictable, it redeems itself with its humour, graphics and cute side characters like Barry the Strawberry.
However, if you are thinking of catching it in 3D, we’d suggest that you save the money for popcorn because the 3D effects do little to enhance the viewing experience.While visually impactful, Cloudy 2 fails to live up to the brilliance of its older brother in terms of the depth of the story and complexity of its characters. To the fans of the first film: lower your expectations and you might just have a good movie experience.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 will be showing in theaters from 10th October 2013.
