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Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 | 2013 | PG | - 1.3.2
In this sequel an inventor (voiced by Bill Hader) receives an invitation to join the biggest invention company, Live Corp Inc. However, he learns that his old food-making machine is making sentient animals out of food. With his good friend, a weather scientist (voiced by Anna Faris), they must return to combat the beasts, but also discover another enemy. Also with the voices of James Caan, Andy Samberg, Neil Patrick Harris, Benjamin Bratt, Terry Crews, Will Forte, Kristen Schaal, and Joseph Towne. Directed by Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn. [1:35]
SEX/NUDITY 1 - A man and a woman draw a picture of a large laboratory where they plan to work together, and perhaps marry in the future.
► A female orangutan asks a monkey out to have coffee, hinting at a relationship. A monkey drinks a latte, spits it out and squeals, "HOT!" as a female scientist walks by and says, "You're not so bad yourself, monkey."
► A man wearing a chicken suit loses his suit and is shown wearing only briefs; we see his bare shoulders, back and thighs and when he puts on a stretchy outfit his bare gut hangs out. A large policeman dresses as a little girl for his new job in a pastry shop. During closing credits, a woman wearing a pink bikini plays volleyball with a man wearing only knee-shorts (no body details are evident).
► A man's young son wants a hairy chest "like Dad" and sprays it on himself with chocolate frosting.
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VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - The film shows about 40 different food-animal hybrids or "foodimals" and many are large and intimidating, looking like dinosaurs: we see a huge meatloaf with horns and a mouth, a giant cheeseburger-spider, a roaring taco-dile supreme that resembles a T-Rex, huge apple-piethons with long and slithery tongues, and scallions that have expanded into brontosaurs; most are more comic than scary, including shrimpanzees, the mosquitoasts, flamangos, hip-potatomi, watermelon-phants, fruit cockatiels, meatbalruses, bananostriches, eggplanatees, PB & Jellyfish, sasquashes, talking pickles and wildebeets (beatnik beets).
► A flashback shows a tall spaghetti tornado and a scientist blowing up his food-making machine in a flash of light. An island is overrun with food-animals (foodimals) and a TV scientist evacuates everyone.
► A man falls into the mouth of a large cheesespider that swallows him with a big burp.
► People are shown tied together with caution tape and hung over a large grinder set into a floor; a scientist says that he will grind them into his Food Bar recipe and the people are lowered far enough that the shoe of one man hits the grinders and makes sparks; they are pulled back up to safety and no injuries are shown. We see a group performing "Operation Slice and Dice" and cutting up sentient foodimals (we see no blood); the foodimals run and some shout in fear.
► A man climbs tall rock candy columns with sharp corners in a dark cave and another man approaches and they slap at each other; one of the men reprograms a machine in the cave to work for him and says that he is doing it to use people to make money, lying to get what he wants, that lying always works and he then kicks the other man other man over a cliff and into a deep pool of water (he is rescued).
► A scientist unleashes dozens of holograms of himself and they all slap another scientist, and a party-in-a-box explodes confetti and paint onto a scientist, who escapes a meat grinder in the floor and runs up a structure.
► An orangutan pulls out a scalpel shown in close-up and approaches a talking strawberry that swallowed a key while saying that she will cut the key out of it, but a woman protests, saying the key will pass and when the berry sees the scalpel, it poops red jam containing the key (we see the key in the jam on the ground). Four talking pickles fight over the last can of sardines in a small shop, slapping each other with their vines; they charge at a human while carrying harpoons and a fishing rod, demanding with hand signals that he get them more sardines.
► Technicians using freeze guns freeze people and temporarily cover them in ice. Technicians use freeze guns to freeze a few foodimals and we later see captive food creatures in glass cages in a long wall, like a pet shop; a strawberry grabs a freeze gun and freezes a human against the wall close to the audience, with a thud.
► A man, his human friends and thousands of foodimals fight an evil person; captive creatures are freed, technicians are zapped with a freeze ray (they are shown frozen, but otherwise unharmed).
► People drive a police car into a coconut milk stream, over falls and into a clear water stream (no one is injured) until they reach land and meet a giant cheesespider with a hundred sesame seed eyes; it roars and spits cheese at them, chases them while spitting (it does not capture the people) until it is scared off by a spaceship landing and several technicians wearing large spacesuits disembarking the ship and carrying freeze-ray guns. A glider shaped like a pickle and with two scientists inside it is flung from a high-powered fishing reel and it sails through the window of a lab, scaring the staff, who are shown wide-eyed. In a dark jungle scene, we see some brightly colored eyes and we hear a few loud roars.
► A man karate chops a bowl of stew out of the hands of a friend and quickly leaves the room; his girlfriend goes after him and asks what is wrong and they argue about what constitutes friendship. A man and a woman argue and she turns and trudges away through a thick syrup swamp as he shouts her name.
► Vegetables in a movie theater watch old black and white film of foods being cut, blended and cooked (a horror show) and run from the theater toward the viewing audience, shouting and screaming in fear.
► Two male scientists wear wedgie-proof underwear while an orangutan holds on to the back of each undergarment and the men swing from a doorway as they pick up lab equipment avoiding sparking and damaged electrical wires below; one man receives a shock from a wire, then the men swing back up to the doorway, the orangutan holds onto the undergarments until the men are off screen and then releases it to snap them in the behind with a loud SNAP and we hear the men shout briefly. A scientist tries new experiments on his father, shocking him with an electric cord accidentally, tripping him with an invisible coffee table, and exploding confetti all over him with a party-in-a-box. A monkey is shocked twice in experiments, swallows a sparking candle that makes his tail spark and later gets shocked by electric wires in an old lab. Men, a woman, and an orangutan slap one another, saying they are swatting the mosquito-toast creatures buzzing around them (we hear a lot of slapping).
► In the closing credits two people wearing strawberry costumes play Nerf-type baseball and one of them is struck in the groin with the ball; he clutches his groin and falls face down in some sand.
► A police officer often clasps his hands together and points his forefingers like a gun, but does not own a weapon. A police officer rolls around often, like a ninja, while investigating new settings.
► Men and women scream in fear when they meet a talking strawberry (the berry screams as well) and later, a blueberry screams. Several scenes feature a fearful leek screaming and when a food machine produces a baby leek for it, and both leeks scream. A woman fearfully pets a large cheesespider on the head, it stops roaring and begins to pant like a dog, and then it lies on its side like a dog. A TV broadcast reports that giant foodimals are learning to swim so that they can destroy world landmarks like the Sydney Opera House and the Statue of Liberty. We hear that an island is dangerous and there is the potential for death. A man looks at the name "Live Corp" and shows friends how "Live" spells "EVIL" backwards and says that the CEO of the company is evil. A TV scientist says that bullies can never change and a weather girl says that they can change.
► One brief scene features a cow in the middle of giving birth, the calf's hind legs are seen hanging out of the cow, whose head is off screen, and the calf kicks (no body fluids are apparent anywhere). A woman answers her door in the middle of the night and we see her face plastered with a facial masque and her eyes are puffy. A police officer karate chops a spider web made of cheese and flatulates after declaring, "I'm gonna cut the cheese!" An orangutan slobbers and shows fangs briefly, imitating a monster she had once seen. A Porta Potty is the entrance to an underground laboratory and an overweight man gets stuck in the toilet seat and is pushed through by another man.
LANGUAGE 2 - 3 mild scatological terms (crappola, crappo, cut the cheese), 5 exclamations (Oh, chum [fish parts], Oh my gosh, Oh, fudge, shut up), name-calling (stupid, Ghost Man, idiot, Fancypants, Sassypants, nuts, monkey, monster), stereotypical references to mad scientists, police officers, men, women, parents, dinosaurs, great apes, evolution, heroes, corporate hucksters, Hispanics, the Chinese, 1 religious exclamation (Holy guacamole).
SUBSTANCE USE - A scientist drinks lattes and his eyes become large and he talks faster from the caffeine (he drinks lattes in several scenes), a monkey takes a sip from a latte and spits it out, a scientist wears caffeine patches all over his face and when he sticks on another one he faints and falls off screen (we don't hear him hit the floor), and a laboratory contains several beakers of unknown liquids and some of them are used as ingredients in the making of Food Bars.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Lying, greed, keeping promises, making mistakes, responsibility, making amends, courage, cooperation, friendship, growing up, facing the unknown, conflicts, resolutions, diversity.
MESSAGE - Childhood idols can reveal themselves as hucksters and perceived monsters can actually be friends.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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