CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2

Voices: James Caan, Bill Hader, Anna Faris
Directors: Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn

Running Time: 95 mins

"Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2” is an animated sequel – but is hugely inventive, whilst being a slightly sinister deconstruction of Silicon Valley culture prior to a jaunt into “Jurassic Park” parody, then a sort-of “Avatar”-style nature-versus-machines battle.

Animated family films, where talented filmmakers are given enormous amounts of freedom can at times appear as though every possible concept from a brain-storming session makes it into the film. Such as “Despicable Me 2” and similarly the two most recent “Madagascar” films. The end result feels like a splodgy trifle fight — great at the time, then the dreaded aftermath where all involved feel guilty and wonder who’s going to clean up the mess.

“Cloudy 2” begins where "1" left off, with the island of Swallow Falls covered in giant foodstuffs, courtesy of inventor Flint Lockwood’s out-of-control cheeseburger replicator. The newly vindicated scientist (voiced again by Bill Hader) is given a choice — either join his friends in a new enterprise, or head west and become a cog in Live Corp, led by a tech sector icon in the semi-fictitious city of San Franjose.

Live Corp’s leader is the cult-like figure Chester V (the artists making sure he looks nothing like the late Steve Jobs), who outwardly champions innovation while quietly turning great young minds into scared, over-caffeinated drones. But Chester V wants to get back to Swallow Falls, which is now overrun by food-animal hybrids, including fearsome Tacodile Supremes, Watermelophants and Shrimpanzees. The criticism of the high-tech hype and responsibility is abandoned, as Chester V becomes a run-of-the-mill villain with robot henchmen and world domination goals.
It’s worth noting that the jokes are still hugely effective no matter where “Cloudy 2” travels as the new directors and writers duplicate the witty irreverence of the original.

The character design in these films is particularly strong, which rescues some of the more obvious sight gags. “There’s a leek in the boat!” one character screams ... cut to a harmless-looking vegetable with eyes, arms and legs.
The climax is notably similar to the last film’s final conflict — a sign that the writers may have just collapsed with exhaustion. I shudder to think what they have planned for “Cloudy 3”!

TURBO

Voices: Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Michael Peña, Snoop Dogg, Maya Rudolph, Michelle Rodriguez, Samuel L. Jackson, Luis Guzman, Bill Hader, Richard Jenkins, Ken Jeong, Ben Schwartz, Kurtwood Smith

Director: David Soren

Running time: 96 minutes

Dreamworks' latest computer-animated entry "Turbo" is a well-intentioned but sorely misguided piece of nonsense about a snail who wishes he could race alongside the professional Indianapolis 500 drivers he sees on television. Debutant writer-director David Soren and co-writer Darren Lemke have put together a light comedy, sadly with a cheesy and integrity-lacking undercurrent, not an ideal premise for younger viewers to whom it’s mainly aimed.

Larger garden snail Theo (Ryan Reynolds), demands something more —and faster— from life than his species' daily habitual task of working on tomatoes. His brother Chet (Paul Giamatti) says the blatantly obvious - snails aren't meant to race; being exceptionally slow creatures who can’t up their pace past sliming along. However. Theo is glancing over a roadway bridge, falls and is pulled into the engine of a speeding car. Now drenched in nitrous oxide – he is immediately transformed into ‘power-snail’ and adopts the monicker of Turbo! Before long, his new superpowers ridiculously encourage a bunch of failing small retail outlet business owners to sponsor him in the Indianapolis 500, the marketing of which they feel will boost business. So almost without delay they hand a snail several grand in dollars.

"Turbo" quickly loses its way completely, in a miasma of mixed messages. For one thing, nitrous oxide is unacceptable in the world of Indy Car racing, however this minor detail isn’t even touched upon, despite the fact that Turbo has the speed to compete because the shell on his back is full of this illegal chemical substance. He receives (as the sad panels on The X Factor regularly scream) ‘massive Yesses!” and no one bothers to ask why a puny mollusk can hit speeds upwards of 200 mph. So he’s a slimy cheat attempting to achieve success by nefarious means, and the makers seemingly have no problem with the ethics of this, despite branding such tosh as ideal fodder for youngsters.

Samuel L Jackson, for so long trading on his brand of Mr Cool, here slips several notches in that regard (by voicing Whiplash) in such a poorly conceived venture. The whole enterprise is a major disappointment in the studio's and director’s conception of the project. Children don’t really need to see a film where the protagonist triumphs by breaking the rules – and again it parallels atrocious tv ‘talent’ shows by seemingly stating there is no problem going through life believing you are something you're not because no friend or family member has the heart to tell you the truth.