It's been a long time between meals.
Four years long, to be precise since the ultra-creative team of Phil Lord and Chris Miller introduced the world of Swallow Falls, where a well-meaning inventor named Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) showed us the comedic and sometimes scary part of supersizing your food in a way that would scare even Morgan Spurlock.
When last we left young Flint, his girlfriend Sam Sparks(Anna Faris) and father Tim (James Caan), they had just saved their island home from being buried in giant foodstuffs created by the Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator (FLDSMDFR for short). Faced with a cleanup of gastronomical proportions, they are offered a proposition by Flint's childhood idol and super inventor, Chester V (Will Forte) and his intelligent ape assistant Barb (Kristen Schall). The eccentric owner of Live Corp offers to relocate them to the beautifully caffeinated ocean town of San Franjose. Think Silicon Valley with more coffee, colors and hills.
Flint's group of family and BFFs adjust to their new home, except Tim who can't wait to get back to seaside living. A chance to return home is revealed when Chester V offers Flint a trip back home to retrieve and shut down the FLDSMDFR, which is not only SUV sized snacks, but making them sentient, to boot. Kids, this is what happens when you don't properly unplug your gadgets. Before long, Flint's crew, accompanied by Sam's wise cameraman Manny (Benjamin Bratt), Flint's former bully now pal Brent (Andy Samberg), overly aggressive policeman Earl (Terry Crews standing in for Mr. T), and the ever-present Steve the Monkey (Neil Patrick Harris) invite themselves back to what was once their home to join and later confront Chester V's true agenda.
What "Cloudy 2" lacks in term of plot, it makes up for in eye-popping visuals. With puns aplenty in their toolbox, directors Cameron and Pearn learn that too much is never enough when it comes to kids and their attention spans. No sooner than we get to springing a "leek" in our boat, are we bombarded with living food of all shapes and sizes. "French" toast takes on a literal meaning and shrimpanzees will be on several kids Christmas wish list. It's all good fun and best of all captured in 3-D, because who wouldn't want to see cute foodimals like a bouncing baby marshmallow, Flamangos or a Bananostrich jump out of the screen at you. They all seem scary at first, but before long you just want to hug them...before you eat them.
Parents will feel a little cheated after the fun storyline and empathy for the downtrodden Flint in the first movie, but "Cloudy 2" will keep the kids laughing and probably dreaming more of giant vegetables (sugary desserts are oddly absent on the Jurassic Food list) than giant sundaes and that can't be all bad.
