Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 (PG)
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This is, of course, the sequel to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. The story picks up pretty much immediately after the end of that movie, with Flint and Sam making plans to start their own lab where they would work together. However, their plans are immediately interrupted by the arrival of a team from Live Corp, led by a hologram of the company's CEO, Chester V... a famous inventor who happens to be Flint's childhood idol. Chester declares that his company will clean up the mess left behind in Swallow Falls by the events of the first film, and meanwhile, the town's citizens will be relocated to San Franjose. Except for Flint, whom he offers a job at his company. And there's an annual competition for the best inventor in the company to win a promotion and become... a Thinkquanaut. The next winner will be announced six months after Flint starts working there, and he's sure he'll win. But he doesn't. However, soon after his loss, Chester gives him a mission to return to Swallow Falls, where it turns out Flint's invention from the first movie hadn't actually been destroyed, and was continuing to create all sorts of animal-like foods (or "foodimals"), which are apparently wreaking havoc. (Most notable are the cheespiders, which are huge cheeseburgers with french fry legs and sesame seed eyes.) Chester's whole team had been killed by these creatures, I guess. And Chester wants Flint to go there (alone), to find his machine and shut it down for good. Of course, several characters including Sam, Flint's dad, and some secondary characters, all insist on going with him to help.

I want to say that when they get to the island, it kind of put me in mind of a surreal version of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. For about a minute. Also, they meet a friendly and playful strawberry, whom Sam names "Barry." (It's large by strawberry standards, but unlike some of the foodimals on the island, it's still much smaller than people... sort of puppy-sized, I'd say.) And um... gosh, a lot of stuff happens, most of which I don't want to go into detail about. I do have to say that Chester's main assistant is an ape with a human brain, named Barb (Kristen Schaal). (Actually, various websites are saying she's an orangutan, but I only remember her being called an ape, in the movie.) And it's obvious pretty much from the beginning that Chester is actually a villain, whose true purpose in sending Flint back to the island is not what he said it was. But of course the good guys win in the end.

The reason I don't say more than that about the plot isn't just to avoid spoilers, but also because, for the most part, I didn't think the plot was all that important. The sequel is not nearly as good as the original, but it's still a lot of fun, mainly because of all the amusing foodimal-based puns. (And maybe some pop culture reference-based puns.) Seriously... if you're a fan of puns, you should really enjoy this movie a lot. And if you're not a fan of puns... meh, I dunno, you'll probably kind of like it anyway. I guess.