That bunch of bananostriches nearly split us!

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

(2013)

(SPOILERS) Phil Lord and Chris Miller elected not to return as directors for this sequel (unlike with their other franchise, 20-something Jump Street), although they did contribute the storyline. Nothing about Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 suggests they spent more than 10 minutes brainstorming; if the first film saw them going for a disaster movie, here they take the lost continent/ unexplored island route. The result is visually much more inventive than its predecessor, but manages to be simultaneously both narratively formulaic and thematically confused.

Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn make their theatrical debut as directors, while the finished screenplay is credited to Erica Rivinoja (a staff writer on South Park, but more importantly on Lord and Miller’s Clone High), Jonathan Francis Daley and Jonathan M Goldstein (partners on Horrible Bosses and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, so a formidably average pair). Seven individuals contributing to the writing and directing is more than enough to come up with a complete mess, and to get to the point where they in desperation they decide to approve two “There’s a leak in the boat!” gags (it is funny the first time, but it’s the desperate comedian who repeats himself during an encore).

Cloudy 2 picks up directly after the original, unusual in itself for an animation, but any ground-breaking qualities end soon after. Flint Lockwood’s hero, master-inventor Chester V (Will Forte voicing a highly unsubtle riff on Steve Jobs), sends Flint and his chums to California. Chester, the CEO of Live Corp (Apple; Chester even unveils new improved versions of his famous food bar and has built “the coolest, hippest company in the world”) has been charged with cleaning up their island of Swallow Falls. This in itself has potential, running with the notion that science and business combined lead to untold pollution; Sallow Falls is treated like an oil spill of enormous food. Really, though, Chester just wants to get his mitts on Flint’s FLDSMDFR. Hampered by mutant food creatures (monster cheeseburgers in particular) Chester calls on Flint to find and destroy the FLDSMDFR (so Flint thinks). So it’s the big mean corporation up to no good, which is fine but the delivery is entirely half-hearted. There’s no relish to go with the rampant foodimals.

The transformed Swallow Falls is the best feature of the feature. Arriving in mysterious, overgrown land, the inspiration is clearly the mist-shrouded Skull Island and the Lost World (the Jurassic Park one, that is) complete with a technicolour explosion of assorted oddments of animal food hybrids. They probably needed the five writers to come up with the different medleys; shrimpanzees, cantelopes (okay, that’s good), water melonphants, bananostriches and guacodiles (there are also spring onion diplodocuses and hipotatoes); an entire ecosystem of living food. Which provides a solid series of sight gags, but there’s little else here. Flint’s enrapture with Chester (they were even both bullied at school) leads to him shunning his friends, leading to an awkward churning of sentimental drivel concerning the power of friendship; as with the first picture, none of this feels remotely genuine. It’s there because that’s what’s required of a family animation.

And yet, there are some very peculiar implications in all this. The vegetation gone sentient can only be seen as an allusion to GMOs (which Chester plans to put in his food bars because they’re extra tasty). Which makes Flint, as before, a really highly destructive force. One might suggest there’s a subversive streak, as the picture ends up at a point of protecting these foodimals from being skewered; “They are living creatures!” Perhaps the makers want kids to avoid GM food for sentimental reasons, since telling them it’s bad will do little to dissuade them. That’s clutching at straws, though. The very strange thing is that one moment anthropomorphised vegetables are a no-go area but the next Flint and his dad are killing fish in a father-son bonding session.

Accompanying wit and commentary are in short supply, aside from the lazy Apple material. This time, alternative fuel sources go no further than “a zero-emissions car that runs on cute”. There are a number of vulgar gags, the best of which is “Stand back – I’m going to cut the cheese” and the worst involve a baby strawberry shitting jam out of fright and Brent soiling his diaper. I appreciated the use of the Six Million Dollar Man sound effect. It can only be a matter of time before Lord and Miller remake it.

Given the four-year gap, one might expect more than a “churn it out” sequel but the original wasn’t really all that special in the first place. Cloudy 3 will no doubt be along in a couple of years. Hopefully there will be a bit more thought behind it, lest we get another movie where the subtext is that Monsanto are the good guys and Apple are the bad ones (the pendulum may be swinging against the latter, but such a take on the former beggars belief).

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

Other monks will meet their deaths here. And they too will have blackened fingers. And blackened tongues.

The Name of the Rose (1986) (SPOILERS) Umberto Eco wasn’t awfully impressed by Jean Jacques-Annaud’s adaptation of his novel – or “ palimpsest of Umberto Eco’s novel ” as the opening titles announce – to the extent that he nixed further movie versions of his work. Later, he amended that view, calling it “ a nice movie ”. He also, for balance, labelled The Name of the Rose his worst novel – “ I hate this book and I hope you hate it too ”. Essentially, he was begrudging its renown at the expense of his later “ superior ” novels. I didn’t hate the novel, although I do prefer the movie, probably because I saw it first and it was everything I wanted from a medieval Sherlock Holmes movie set in a monastery and devoted to forbidden books, knowledge and opinions.

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (SPOILERS) I was never the greatest fan of Monsters, Inc. , even before charges began to be levelled regarding its “true” subtext. I didn’t much care for the characters, and I particularly didn’t like the way Pixar’s directors injected their own parenting/ childhood nostalgia into their plots. Something that just seems to go on with their fare ad infinitum. Which means the Pixars I preferred tended to be the Brad Bird ones. You know, the alleged objectivist. Now, though, we learn Pixar has always been about the adrenochrome, so there’s no going back…

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies.

Watership Down (1978) (SPOILERS) I only read Watership Down recently, despite having loved the film from the first, and I was immediately impressed with how faithful, albeit inevitably compacted, Martin Rosen’s adaptation is. It manages to translate the lyrical, mythic and metaphysical qualities of Richard Adams’ novel without succumbing to dumbing down or the urge to cater for a broader or younger audience. It may be true that parents are the ones who get most concerned over the more disturbing elements of the picture but, given the maturity of the content, it remains a surprise that, as with 2001: A Space Odyssey (which may on the face of it seem like an odd bedfellow), this doesn’t garner a PG certificate. As the makers noted, Watership Down is at least in part an Exodus story, but the biblical implications extend beyond Hazel merely leading his fluffle to the titular promised land. There is a prevalent spiritual dimension to this rabbit universe, one very much

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed into your conscious awareness.

Brainstorm (1983) (SPOILERS) Might Brainstorm have been the next big thing – a ground-breaking, game-changing cinematic spectacle that had as far reaching consequences as Star Wars (special effects) or Avatar (3D) – if only Douglas Trumbull had been allowed to persevere with his patented “Showscan” process (70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second)? I suspect not; one only has to look at the not-so-far-removed experiment of Ang Lee with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk , and how that went down like a bag of cold sick, to doubt that any innovation will necessarily catch on (although Trumbull at least had a narrative hinge on which to turn his “more real than real” imagery, whereas Lee’s pretty much boiled down to “because it was there”). Brainstorm ’s story is, though, like its title, possibly too cerebral, too much concerned with the consciousness and touting too little of the cloyingly affirmative that Bruce Rubin inevitably brings to his screenplays. T

Maybe the dingo ate your baby.

Seinfeld 2.9: The Stranded The Premise George and Elaine are stranded at a party in Long Island, with a disgruntled hostess.

He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) (SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek , but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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