Today's Review: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2: ****/*****, or 7/10

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs remains an overlooked piece of animation from recent years. Maybe because it's not a Pixar movie, maybe because it doesn't have as distinct a style as the likes of Aardman or Laika's stop motion features, maybe it's because it does have a somewhat generic quality to it at first glimpse. That said, it's a blast of a film, a great joy from beginning to end. And apparently it did well enough at the boxoffice to spawn a successor, as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 has now thundered into theaters.

Its title is a work of deception, aimed to convince audiences this is indeed a sequel. There's few meatballs to be found here, while the meteorological aspect has been toned down significantly. What remains is the characters from the first film, as well as the delightfully whimsical humour and offbeat visual design that characterized the previous movie. Though the directors of the original film decided to do The LEGO Movie instead, they left the project in the capable hands of people who understood and appreciated the quirky subject matter.

After his home island of Swallow Falls got covered in edible stuff during a giant foodstorm he partially caused, young inventor Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) and his friends have relocated to the big city of San Franhosé, where Flint is now working for Live Corp, a big company of science enthusiasts created by his idol Chester V (Will Forte). While that firm is also attempting to clean up the island to make it livable for the human population again, strange things happen to the mop-up crew and Chester calls on Flint for aid. Against his mentor's advice, he recruits his friends, including his girlfriend Sam (Anna Faris) and his stern father (James Caan), to help him in his mission. To their astonishment, Swallow Falls has reverted to a wild, primordial jungle, inhabited by all manner of strange animals and plants, some friendly, others dangerous. And it's all made out of food. Exploring this new wilderness he inadvertently created, Flint finds that not all is as it seems and starts questioning his allegiance. Flint soon must choose between the side of science and cold reasoning or to stick to his irrational friends and family instead, as the two sides of himself prove at odds over the future of the island and its wildlife. 

 

Cloudy 2 swaps food weather for food animals. That's not a bad thing, as it avoids lazy repetition. No more zany weather patterns like spaghetti tornadoes, now we have 'foodimals' like shrimpanzees and hippotatomuses. It will come as no surprise that a lot of the jokes are provided by such play-on-words, some ingenious, others less clever. Nevertheless, the wonderful look of these beasties – including the cutest strawberries ever! – clearly shows the fun the animators must have had while designing this film. At the same time, the characters we came to know and love from the previous film are left intact. Sadly, not all of them are given their due, as the emotional core of the movie is personified by Flint's idol on one side and his father and girl on the other. The remaining supporting characters are doing just that, without contributing to the whole much. Though the energetic cop Earl and the multi-talented cameraman Manny are still good for a laugh or two, they could have been left out altogether, in favour of developing the new antagonist more closely. No mistake is made from the beginning on that the expert sillywalker Chester is the bad guy, though in the end, the motivations of his diabolical schemes leave something to be desired, considering his supposed intellect. Cloudy 2 can definitely be accused of putting more focus on the look of the film than on the development of its characters.

Such slights are easily forgiven, as the film provides an excellent second course in terms of visuals. The fabulous forests of foodstuff, the clinically clean Live Corp headquarters, the quirky cityscapes, it all looks delectable to behold. Whereas the beasts of the jungle are obviously Jurassic Park inspired, their dwelling place takes a note or two from Avatar's pages, adorned with bioluminescence and all manner of bizarre features. This visual feast definitely sets Cloudy 2 apart from its predecessor, which proved more simple and primitive in this regard, giving it a look and feel all its own. As the plot was inspired by JP, so too the eye candy is only loosely based on Cloudy 1, instead of merely carbon copying it.

The elaborate visuals notwithstanding, there's a thing or two to be said against the film's morality. Its message is one of ecological respect, speaking out against the rape of nature for the sake of making money. However, as cute as the foodimals may be, they remain aberrations. An ecosystem has formed on this island, but what of the original ecosystem that had to make place for it? Our heroes connect to these creatures, seeing them as more than food, because they have grown to be living, breathing entities. But what of the sardines they happily consume, which were living, breathing entities to begin with? Should they not also fall under the same category? Where do the protagonists draw the line in deciding which creatures to stand up for, and which to see as mere food? Uneasy questions like these are formed when they do not eat animals made of food, but teach them how to fish for normal lifeforms instead.

It seems such questions never occurred to the writers, as the story of Cloudy 2 is subject to the execution in terms of jokes and visual flair. The latter works its magic throughout, awing us with one spectacular sight after another and charming us with their inhabitants, both human and food. The former is good for a smile all through the piece: though the number of truly memorable jokes remains somewhat limited compared to the previous installment, most gags prove effective in the short bursts they seem designed for. If the first movie was the main course, Cloudy 2 is a fine dessert, a four-flavoured sorbet, comprised of your favourite taste, two others you like fine, and one you never really cared for.

A dictator late for his own funeral

The Dictator: ***/*****, or 6/10

At least there's one thing to be said for dictators: they make for bizarrely colourful characters, and their regimes often feature such ludicrous rules of conduct the rest of the world cannot do anything but wonder just how seriously these tyrants should be taken. It seems like a natural ingredient for a comedy, though given the subject matter most people don't dare to make a feature film out of it. Charles Chaplin's The Great Dictator, already 72 years old, still rules supreme as the number one example as to how a brutal oppressive government can successfully be made fun of, though after WW II Chaplin admitted in hindsight he would not have made the movie had he known just how atrocious Hitler's reign of terror had been, making the film taste sour when watching certain scenes spoofing situations that in reality would have cost hundreds of lives. It can be said The Great Dictator was made too early, making it a light take on history that had yet to occur. The opposite now happens with Sacha Baron Cohen's latest raunchy comedy, simply called The Dictator, which, when compared to recent history, feels it was released a little too late to feel like it's truly up on current events.

The dictator is question is Admiral-General Aladeen (of course performed by Cohen), Supreme Leader of Wadiya (a fictional North-African country), who was born in power thanks to his father who violently seized control. Having ruled his nation since the age of seven, Aladeen is a typical 'spoiled brat' type of overlord, who views his country as his own private playground and has everybody who disagrees with him executed without mercy. Aladeen does whatever he feels like doing, including hosting and competing in the Wadiyan Olympics, which he wins by shooting his fellow contestants, as well as sleeping with celebrities who prostitute themselves for substantial fees (and the movie makes it clear there's a lot of those, which makes for the funniest roles both Megan Fox and Edward Norton have ever played). Like any rogue nation, Wadiya has its own nuclear programme, which according to a loudly snickering Aladeen will only be used for peaceful purposes. Of course, the UN won't fall for his not so convincing performance, so he's requested to address its representatives in New York or face air strikes. And thus, Aladeen heads to the USA, the birthplace of AIDS as he calls it, to ease the international community.

Warning! Here be spoilers! So far The Dictator doesn't seem much unlike Cohen's previous projects, Borat and Brüno, both of which also opened with a string of fairly random scenes applied to establish the film's main character and the bizarre world he inhabited, leading to a trip to the States that made the protagonist come into conflict with American extremities and himself, in yet more loose scenes that felt mostly like separate sketches instead of a progressive narrative. The Dictator however has a more consistent storyline. Soon after arrival at his New York hotel – where they charge an outrageous 20 dollars for Internet! – Aladeen finds himself victim of a conspiracy and carried off for torture and vicious death, only to be replaced by his most recently installed doppelganger, a very simple minded goat herder whose only job it is to be shot in the head. The plot against his life is planned by his uncle Tamir, who means to use the decoy Aladeen to move Wadiya towards a democracy only to sell off its oil reserves to foreign contractors and get excessively rich in the process, over the backs of the Wadiyan populace. Tamir is played by Ben Kingsley, a seemingly surprising bit of casting considering his unwavering status as one of the world's greatest actors, someone who most people would never expect to see in a raunchy comedy like this. However, for every masterpiece like Schindler's List or Gandhi, Kingsley has done a Thunderbirds or Love Guru, revealing he's up for anything if the money is right, not unlike the Megan Foxes of the celebrity world this film also pokes at with hilarious results.

Due to his experience in torture, Aladeen escapes his imprisonment only to be left on the streets of New York to fend for himself. When trying to get into the UN building he meets Zoey, a bisexual feminist activist (played by Anna Faris made unrecognizably boyish) who offers him a job at her eco-collective, where every employee is a political refugee, offering Cohen the full potential to make politically incorrect fun at every conceivable ethnic, gender or demographic minority. In the New York neighbourhood of Little Wadiya, Aladeen also meets Nadal (Jason Mantzoukas), the former chief of his nuclear program who he thought he had executed for disagreeing over the shape of Wadiya's first nuclear missile (Aladeen wanted it pointy, since a rounded shape would make it look like a giant flying dildo). In exchange for returning to his old job, Nadal agrees to help Aladeen get back to power. Though it seems rather gullible of a scientist sentenced to death to trust the one who gave the order, Nadal and Aladeen work together more effectively for story purposes than Aladeen does with Zoey, who's cooperation seems mostly an excuse for dirty gags, many of them funny, all of them sexist, racist or generally offensive (as we're used to from Cohen). However, in the latter case, the comedic result is much more convincing, while Mantzoukas unfortunately proves himself to be inexperienced when it comes to the gift of timing, making many of the funny situations he participates in sadly miss their mark.

Hilarity aside, the audience expects Cohen to make at least some political comments when it comes to dictatorships in an age where one after the other bites the dust. In this regard, The Dictator seems to have been produced a little too late to feel in any way relevant. Many of the much despised people Cohen, either implicitly or explicitly, refers to in this movie, have fallen victim to the results of their own tyranny by now, including Osama Bin Laden, Khadaffi, Charles Taylor and Berlusconi, yet the movie presents them, either in character or only in dialogue, as still active, or even still alive. Though the movie opens with an 'in memoriam' to Kim Jong-Il, this feels like a simple last-minute addition, done mostly to make the film appear to be more up with the times than it eventually turns out to be. The Dictator, alas, is revealed to be an already outdated project by the time it hit movie screens. Of course, there's still plenty of dictators left presently, but none of these remaining tyrants are either well known enough, disturbing enough or simply funny enough to be made (ab)use of in The Dictator, not even in late post-production additions like Jong-Il. It seems all the cool dictators have already passed away, or at least been forced to step down, just before Cohen could effectively spoof them in his hommage to oppressive regimes.

And an hommage it is, even if only for comedy's sake. In the end, Aladeen succeeds in foiling uncle Tamir's evil schemes, publicly tearing Wadiya's new constitution to pieces in front of the UN delegation, resulting in a speech applauding the many virtues of dictatorships over democracies, of course referring to America's insidious and slow, but poignantly present move towards the former in the recent decade, in which we again spot Cohen just missing the appropriate time frame in which to state his 'j'accuse', considering the level of repression in the USA has at least diminished under Obama compared to the Bush doctrine. While the anti-Jewish, anti-Islamic and anti-gay slurs Cohen revealed as ever present in American in his previous projects, seem ever prevalent (this movie resorts to exposing them too, to a minor extent), his views on America's level of democratic decline seems at the least outdated, undermining the point he makes on America appropriating anti-democratic behavior which it critiques in other nations (that is, if you feel Cohen ever bothers to make such points, which is also debatable). Like the way Cohen praises the wonderful grotesqueries of tyranny a little behind schedule, so to arrive his allegations towards the “American regime” too late to make them feel all that relevant to audiences. Oh well, at least we still have the jokes.

And at least in terms of comedy The Dictator delivers some positive results. Of course, many remarks and situations result in extremely crude, deviant sexual gags, as we've come to expect from Cohen, nor would we have it any other way by now. Some of them are genuinely funny despite their obviously adult content – why this movie only got a '12' certificate in the Netherlands is beyond me – while others are glaringly embarrassing to watch, including a woman giving birth and Aladeen coming to her aid by accidentally jamming his fist up her butt. Fortunately the cringe-worthy moments form a minority, while several instances of great humour undoubtedly will prove memorably hilarious, and quotable for years to come. The greatest gags involve Wadiyan life under Aladeen's rule, like many words having been replaced by the term 'aladeen', including 'positive' and 'negative', resulting in confusion when a doctor informs his patient of 'aladeen news' since he's 'HIV-aladeen'. Plus, we'll never forget the sight of a wall adorned with thousands of photos of Aladeen posing with a celebrity he has had sex with (including Oprah Winfrey and Arnold Schwarzenegger). Whatever point The Dictator has missed thematically, it compensates for the most part in terms of humour.

Overall, The Dictator will certainly never reach the status of an undying classic like The Great Dictator did, despite both films missing the mark historically. Even if the former had reached theatres, say, a year earlier, it would still contain various painfully unfunny gags taking the momentum out of the overall picture (which is already running short with only 83 minutes). However, like Borat and Brüno before it, the film also contains enough good jokes to make it a decent enough watch, and it proves that with every vile dictator gone, the world of comedy remains a little less colourful.

And watch the trailer here:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/paramount/thedictator/

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Rating: ****/*****, or 8/10

Delightful, often overlooked and underrated animated family film about young inventor Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) who lives on a depressing island where everything revolves around sardines, until he invents a machine that when shot up in the sky can make it rain food. Soon the town lightens up and a food theme park is created, but due to the mayor's humongous greedy appetite, dark clouds of junk food soon loom over the horizon as a food hurricane forms and threatens to destroy the island, if not the world. Together with an intrepid female reporter (performed by Anna Faris), who he has a serious crush on, Flint must find a way to turn off his machine before the whole planet succumbs to severe food poisoning. Features a host of fun supporting characters, including a local spoiled ex-child celebrity, Flints stern and less than enthusiastic father (James Caan) who can't stop talking in fishing metaphors, an overprotective cop/father (Mr. T. with a reverse tomahawk hairdo) who constantly bugs Flint for disturbing the peace with his cracking contraptions, and a talking monkey (of sorts). Though the typical thematic values the movie deals with, mostly about not being afraid to be different (i.e., a nerd) and believing in yourself, the film's strength lies in its abundance of quick visual gags and witty jokes, making it a fun fest for kids and adults alike. The 3-D version also holds up pretty well compared to many other animated films released in the same format. The Dutch dubbed version is notable for its ingenious use of Flemish and regular Dutch dialects: the island inhabitants all speak Flemish, the rest of the world speaks plain Dutch.

Starring: Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan

Directed by Phil Lord, Chris Miller

USA: Columbia Pictures, 2009