Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 - Movie Review

Starring the voices of Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Will Forte, Andy Samberg, Benjamin Bratt, Neil Patrick Harris, Terry Crews and Kristen Schaal.
Directed by Cody Cameron & Kris Pearn.

Grade: B-

If you haven't seen the first one, fear not. This movie recaps it pretty effectively in the first 90 seconds.  It also picks up mere minutes after the first one ended, with their island covered in food, but the disastrous water-into-food machine destroyed.

This is one of those mild-enjoyment animated movies. There's "genuine enjoyment" films like most of Pixar and half of Disney, there are arms-folded hope-the-kids-liked-it movies like Escape from Planet Earth, and somewhere in the middle we get movies like this. I you liked the first one, you'll like this one too. I liked the first one.

Flynn and friends go back to their home to find the island overtaken by sentient food-animal type creatures, like spiderburgers and shrimpanzees.  We therefore get a quick-paced, frantic, colorful explosion of creatures and characters somewhere between The Croods and Alice in Wonderland.

The voice work I enjoyed the most was Will Forte as the duplicitous scientist using Flynn for his own nefarious purposes. My main quibble: Mr. T did not return to voice policeman Earl. It's covered by Terry Crews. Why no Mr. T?

New TV Show Reviews Part 2

ABC's BETRAYAL - Funny watching talented actors try to make limp material breathe.  The likes of James Cromwell and Henry Thomas are in supporting roles, but a series centered on adultery isn't really going to go far if it's in that Castle/Nashville sheen that ABC uses on all their dramas.  In fact, I've been noticing more and more that network shows look like they belong on the networks they're on. All the CBS dramas look the same, the ACS dramas look the same, the NBC dramas look the same.  Grade: D

CBS's THE CRAZY ONES - Robin Williams is back, and he's in predictably precious form. He's an ad man, and wouldn't you know it, Mad Men's James Wolk works there too. The first episode was a giant McDonald's commercial. (You know, Mad Men uses real brands too, but I never felt like they were blatant commercials for Jaguar or Kodak.)  There's no laugh-track but several times it'll have a co-worker crack up at whatever Williams is doing.  Grade: C

ABC's BACK IN THE GAME - James Caan is all crust and grumpiness, in a funny way, as an old man who takes baseball waaaay too seriously but is now helping his daughter coach her son's baseball team, and those boys are the ones who couldn't make the other teams they tried out for. Grade: B-

ABC's SUPER FUN NIGHT - Why have Rebel Wilson have an American accent but still have a British guy in the cast?  I kept wondering why they didn't let let Rebel be Australian.  I'll say this. I liked it a lot more than Girls.  Grade: C+

Henry's Crime - DVD Review

Starring Keanu Reeves, Vera Farmiga, James Caan, Peter Stormare, Judy Greer, Bill Duke and Fisher Stevens.  Directed by Malcolm Venville.

★★


This minor crime caper has its small pleasures. Fast-forward to any scene with James Caan, and you'll experience them. Otherwise it reminded me too often of Bullets Over Broadway, a much funnier movie.

Keanu Reeves reminds us all how limited his range is here. He plays Henry, a fairly spineless man who goes to jail for robbing a bank, a crime he didn't commit. He befriends a long-timer (Caan) in jail, and when Henry gets out, he decides he's going to go ahead and rob that very bank.

The bank has an old tunnel leaving between it and the theater next door, so they endear themselves to the cast next door, preparing to put on The Cherry Orchard.

The movie needed someone, anyone, with more energy than Henry. I kept thinking how someone like Steve Carell or Paul Rudd might've handled the role. Reeves, though, has the emotive power of a totem pole.