David Feiss | 15 mins | Blu-ray | 1.78:1 | USA / English | U
On Blu-ray, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 comes with a selection of four “mini-movies” — that’s “shorts” to you and me. When the film debuts on Sky Movies Premiere tomorrow, each screening will be preceded by three of these, under the Extra Toppings title.
Kicking things off is Steve’s First Bath, in which Flint explains to Sam why his attempts to wash the monkey led to their big romantic date taking place at a pickle restaurant. Then, in Super Manny, everyone’s favourite pint-sized cameraman has to get to the studio on his day off, but his journey is blighted by the misadventures of a cute kitty. Finally, Attack of the 50ft. Gummi Bear! sees Flint’s latest invention cause havoc when his favourite confectionary bear gets super-sized.
Also on the BD, but not Sky Movies (though it is on YouTube), is Earl Scouts, in which policeman Earl takes a strawberry and pickle camping (Foodimals, not normal ones, natch) to teach them a valuable life lesson.
The best of the bunch is Super Manny, because Manny’s always fun and it’s the most inventively zany. Worst is Earl Scouts, because it’s just a poor Tom & Jerry / Itchy & Scratchy riff — Sky viewers won’t be missing much by not seeing it. Attack of the 50ft. Gummi Bear! falls somewhere between those two stools, as I suppose does Steve’s First Bath, though slightly less objectionably so — there’s fun to be had in how it sets up Flint’s grand uber-romantic date, then how it’s trashed by Steve and the robot built to wash him.
All of the films are animated in good ol’ 2D, in a rough collage-y style reminiscent of the main films’ credits sequences. Clearly someone felt troubled about doing 2D spin-offs from a 3D-animated film, though, because most start with a CG opening that over-eggs the need for excuses to be in 2D. Why not just get on with it? The only bookend sequence that actually ‘works’ is Steve’s First Bath; though, fortunately, Gummi Bear doesn’t even bother with one.
On the whole, the shorts are passably entertaining if you like slapstick-y 2D animation and want to kill quarter-of-an-hour (or 22 minutes with Earl Scouts thrown in). But there’s nothing particularly innovative or original about any of them — certainly not worth going out of your way for.
Cloudy 2: Extra Toppings is on Sky Movies Premiere tomorrow at 1:15pm and 6:45pm. The premiere showings of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 follow at 1:35pm and 7:15pm. You can read my review here.
Quirky director Jeunet uses quirky cinematography and quirky special effects to tell the quirky story of a quirky girl, who had a quirky upbringing by quirky parents, and now lives a quirky life with quirky friends. A quirky coincidence leads her into the quirky hobby of cheering up strangers in quirky ways, during which she meets more quirky people who do quirky things, and she quirkily falls for the quirkiest.
A sequel to the suprisingly-good-in-spite-of-its-name animated comedy, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (innovative title; though better than its original moniker, Revenge of the Leftovers) begins mere minutes after 
The villain this time is a thinly-veiled riff on Apple and its messianic founder, Steve Jobs. Here they become the aforementioned Life Corp, whose logo (and headquarters) is a giant lightbulb, and the equally-aforementioned Chester V, Flint’s childhood hero. As with almost all hero-since-childhood characters, you can guess where that’s going from the moment he appears at the start of the opening montage. Nonetheless, his storyline and relationship with Flint mostly works — it does take Flint a long time to reach the point of realising The Truth, but for viewers the reveal comes earlier and isn’t treated as an inappropriately big shock. Again, kids less familiar with movie tropes will be even more accepting of it. Plus there’s a Moral Message there for said kiddies (naturally), this time about trusting in your friends. It’s all familiar fare to an adult viewer, but doesn’t dominate to the point of boredom.
In the end, Cloudy 2 isn’t quite as good as the first film, but not in a “notably inferior” way. It remains relentlessly entertaining, with an admirable energy and drive, which is in part a desperation to not be boring, but not in a shallow way. It may lack the extra little something that the first one has, but if that was an 8-out-of-10 then this is a 7 — which, because it’s fun rather than disappointing, rounds up to:
The director of Disney’s woeful 
I confess, I’ve never really got on with the Coen brothers. I liked 
I don’t wholly agree, though I didn’t unabashedly love the film as some do. It’s perhaps a bit “of its time” now, and getting a little “you had to be there”; coming to it almost two decades later, it exemplifies a ’90s American mainstream/independent-borderline filmmaking sensibility; the kind of bracket the early works of Tarantino might also fall into, for instance.
If one did want to look into Lebowski more deeply, the most interesting facet is that noir one. It’s quite lightly of that genre — very much an updating and re-appropriation of certain tropes, rather than a straight-up example of where the modern version(s) of the genre is (are… or were). It feels like the Coens were consciously putting a present-day(-then) character through the paces of a traditional noir plot. Whether that was the deliberate structural conceit or just a side effect of making a noir pastiche, I couldn’t say.
In fact, the worst thing about the film is purely a result of its age, and that’s the occasional bout of misogyny. Let’s face it, the girls going all giggly over the Falcon is pretty defensible (look at modern-day reactions to the likes of One Direction, Justin Bieber, or even Benedict Cumberbatch), but the bit where he picks a twenty-something girl up to smack her bottom is a bit much. Still, it opens with a great bit: the Falcon parks his car, a girl immediately runs up to it: “Mr Lawrence?” “Yes?” She jumps in, instantly kisses him full on the lips, and when she pulls away all he can say, with a slightly surprised look, is, “Nice!” You could put that in something today and it’d still work.
such thoughts always endear them to me.
When 
hiding that fact from her disapproving guardian (Morris Chestnut). Meanwhile, Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) wants revenge on Kick-Ass for murdering his father, but is being kept out of the way by his mother and the remains of his father’s mob organisation… until she dies in a freak accident, when Chris dubs himself “the Motherfucker” and sets about forming a gang of supervillains…
the sequel doesn’t feel as focussed. The themes are somewhat familiar — superheroes leading to supervillains, as seen in 
Wadlow does make welcome changes to Millar’s notoriously nihilistic comic, however: instead of gang-raping Kick-Ass’ girlfriend, the Motherfucker can’t get it up (I guess because Kick-Ass isn’t dating his mother (ho ho!)); instead of murdering Colonel Stars & Stripes’ dog, he remarks that “I’m not that evil!”; and so on. The film version still has its points of offensiveness and some outré ideas, certainly, but the needlessly-harsh edge has been taken off, especially when it comes to punishing characters who are innocent. With the exception of Kick-Ass’ dad, but then that’s a superhero staple… just one that’s more violently executed here than normal.
So is Kick-Ass 3 a good idea? Kick-Ass 2 does provide a kind of conclusion to the story… but it also leaves it wide open for more, not to mention that Millar & Romita’s third comic book miniseries (currently running) is supposed to be the definitive final act for the characters. It would be a shame not to see that completed on screen, but perhaps with more care in how it’s executed.
Disney’s 51st and/or 52nd animated classic (depends who you listen to) is, essentially, 
Unfortunately, despite the rarely-filmed milieu of video games, it’s all a bit predictable — like I said, it basically does with video game characters what Toy Story did with toys, both in terms of the story and its themes of acceptance. At least one wearing subplot had me involuntarily exclaim “oh get on with it!” out loud (and I was watching by myself). The pace rarely lets up, and at 101 minutes that becomes tiring. When it does give you a break, you kinda wish it would get a wriggle on, because it’s obvious where things are going and it’s wasting time getting there. Of course, most mainstream films (especially kids’ movies) are going to follow broadly the same arcs — however bad it gets we know the hero will win, etc — but the trick is to make you enjoy the journey, not long to arrive at the destination. I spent most of the third act almost drumming my fingers as I waited for it to get to the latter.
Wreck-It Ralph isn’t actually a bad film. There’s a fair bit of inventiveness with the concept, and the makers have worked hard to establish a world with rules (though your mileage may vary on how successfully they’ve done that), but it descends into a breathless, sugar-fuelled, reheated runabout. I imagine young kids will adore its colourfulness and its energy, and won’t be bothered by the over-familiar plotting and life lessons; but, beyond nostalgia for arcade gamers, I don’t believe it has huge amounts to offer a grown-up viewer.
Aardman’s second CG feature attracts a starry cast (not just the leads — check out who’s credited as “Lead Elf”!) to the story of how Santa really delivers all those presents in one night: a giant spaceship-like craft and thousands of SAS-esque elves. But when one child is missed, Santa’s clumsy son Arthur resolves to fix it.
Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson are back as… um… whatever their characters were called, in this follow-up to 
Knights as a whole feels like it moves better than its predecessor — it gets going quicker, without the need to establish these characters and force them together; there’s a greater reliance on those quality action sequences. The guest cast feels a bit bargain basement, though the villains — Aiden Gillen and the aforementioned Yen — are of a higher calibre. This means we’re treated to a pair of great climaxes, with Chan first having that punch-up with Yen, followed by a three-sword duel with Gillen (or possibly a stuntman).
In the end, I’m not sure if I like it more or less than the first film. The Western setting was a smoother fit in many ways, but here there’s a less stodgy plot, a general reduction in the overlong comedy sequences, and even better action sequences. All things considered, I think Knights may actually have the edge.
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