Review: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

Once again, the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs series has gone above my expectations.  I wasn't expecting much from the first and really enjoyed it.  Based on the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 trailer, I was expecting to really enjoy it and I'm pretty sure I was smiling and laughing the entire time.

The plot is essentially Jurassic Park 2 and 3: the science that went wrong in the first one has gone ever further wrong creating an ecosystem of its own.  Instead of dinosaurs, however, it's food animals (or foodimals).  And even better than Jurassic Park 3, all the new types of creatures are actually well designed.  Just about every foodimal is created solely to be a pun (Shrimpanzee, Peanut Butter and Jellyfish, Mosquitoast, etc.), but beyond the awesomeness of that, they are all really beautiful and well thought out.

The entire movie is also incredibly well animated with lots of little subtle (and some not so subtle) visual jokes going on almost all the time.  There was one scene that totally reminded me of Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing where the scene and dialogue were about one thing, but the entire time, there's something happening visually that was way more entertaining.  There were also a couple characters who had me smiling pretty much the entire time they were on the screen just because of how their arms moved or the random stuff they were doing while they talked.

The following is a non-comprehensive list of who I think would like this movie:

• People with kids
• People who love puns
• People who love good animation
• People who love food
• People who love food puns
• People who love animated food puns
• People who love to laugh
• People looking for something lighthearted
• People who secretly (or not so secretly) wished they had a living Strawberry, Pickle, or Tacodile Supreme
• People who were told not to play with their food
• Probably you