Movie review: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

Earl (Terry Crews), Flint (Bill Hader) and Sam (Anna Faris) in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

(G), 95 mins

The sequel carries on where the story left off four years ago, with clumsy young inventor Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader), who invented a machine that creates food from water. In the first movie, Flint had to destroy his great invention to save the world from cheeseburgers, hot dogs, pizza and spaghetti tornadoes.

Swallow Falls, the island Flint and his friends live on, is covered by a sticky mess caused by the food weather catastrophe and they are temporarily relocated to the city.

Flint is hired by his idol and childhood hero, Chester V (Will Forte), and starts working at The Live Corp with the best and brightest inventors in the world. It's always been Flint's dream to be recognised as a great inventor and, at first, he couldn't be happier with this new opportunity.

Hoping to be picked to join Chester V's personal team of brilliant minds, he finds nothing but disappointment. But things seem to take a turn for the better when Chester V personally invites him to help with the clean-up of Swallow Falls.

Along with brainy weathergirl Sam (Anna Faris), his dad (James Caan), a monkey called Steve (Neil Patrick Harris), and his other friends, Flint returns to the island.

There he finds out that he didn't quite save the world because his food-making machine is still working, now creating all sorts of food animals including the potentially dangerous Cheespiders. If those creepy crawlers could learn how to swim and get off the island the world would be in danger once again!

An adorable, big-eyed strawberry named Barry and a bunch of gherkins who love sardines steal the show in the movie. The animations of the food animals, in particular, are cleverly done, like the Tacodile - a crocodile with a stuffed taco for a mouth and a green chilli for a tail.

The phrase "there's a leek in my boat" and other side jokes will bring giggles from mums and dads, but the plot is a little thin. I couldn't discover a real message for children in this film, except maybe that teasing someone is not okay.

It's a fun film, but the story won't keep children over the age of 8 or 9 entertained for very long. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 won't win the animated movie of the year award, but it is still colourful, goofy fun. Not a bad choice of harmless entertainment during the school holidays.

Watch the trailer here: