Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

There are few sequels that turn out better than the original.  Cloudy with a Chance of Meatball 2 is one of those sequels.

CwaCoM2 picks up right where the first one left off.  The CEO of Live Corp, Chester V., comes to Swallow Falls in order to clean up the leftovers from the island.  The entire populace is relocated for the duration of the cleanup.  After Flint gets a job at Live Corp, he is approached by Chester (his childhood hero).  Turns out that the FLDSMDFR is still creating food.  And not just any food.  It's creating living food!  Chester convinces Flint to go back to Swallow Falls and stop the machine.  Even with the help of his friends, can Flint save Swallow Falls without being eaten by living food?

I really liked the first movie.  The characters were fun and the story was good (despite its deviation from the book).  But with CwaCoM2, we get to skip all the parts where we meet the characters and learn about them.  We already know them and get to dive straight into a super fun adventure with them.  Plus we get a couple great new characters like Chester's orangutan with a human brain, Barb (flawlessly voiced by Kristen Schaal) and Barry.

The design and look of CwaCoM2 is way better than in the first movie.  The food animals are fantastic and really clever.  I really liked the way that the food is practically photo realistic, yet the characters are extremely cartoony.

I thought CwaCoM2 was really funny in very kid-friendly way (which means lots of chuckles for adults).  There's some in-jokes that grown-ups will get but for the most part, this is not a movie striving to provide something for the parents in order to make sitting through it less painful.  CwaCoM2 is a well made movie made solely for kids.

I do have two issues with the movie, however.  First, the lack of rat-birds.  The best part of the original gets almost no screen time in the sequel?  Second, the villain.  This isn't really a spoiler, because the character is pretty openly sinister, but just to be safe for the spoiler-sensitive: SPOILER AHEAD!  Chester is the villain.  And I am sick and tired of kid's movies having the main character's childhood hero be the villain.  I hate this!  We are showing kids that they can't trust their role models.  Every studio should watch the Chuck Norris/Jonathan Brandis masterpiece Sidekicks.  That's how role models should be handled.  Your heroes should be there to help you not try to kill you.

This is a great movie for the kids.  Even an adult can get caught up in the crazy fun of it.  Just be sure to remind your kids that food rots if you leave it out.  These movies seem to forget that.

6.5 out of 10