Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 – Blu Ray Review
When Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 hit cinemas last year it was greeted with commercial and critical praise for its creative setting, terrible puns (put to good use) and its energetic animation. Although being a sequel it didn’t have the surprise that its predecessor had the film was still packed full of other surprises around every corner making it one of the best animated feature sequels released recently. the film has recently been released on Blu-ray with an truckload of extras, we take a closer look at whats on the menu here.
Whilst most Blu-rays seem to be lacking extras nowadays it is nice to see this one has been produced with so many of them and with plenty delving into the production, so its something of a treat for animators to be able to enjoy a look behind the scenes at the film. First up are the four “mini movies” which have been directed by David Feiss, the brains behind Cartoon Network favourite Cow and Chicken so expect some great puns, some gross-out humour and classic cartoon capery in Super Manny, starring enigmatic cameraman Manny and his quest to save a cat, Earl Scouts, in which Barry and Pickle are pitted against one another to win Earls approval, Steve’s First Bath leads to pongy primate problems and Attack of the 50-Foot Gummi Bear where a big and ugly machine leads to some frantic and hilarious conveniently, placed, jumbo-sign based puns. The limited 2D approach works well in the “Cloudy” style the features have accustomed us to with a few side explanations and introductory CG segments explaining why they’re in 2D.
You also get some bang for your buck with the deleted scenes too, rather than pencil sketches or rough layouts we see fully rendered gags that hit the cutting room floor, quite why these snippets didn’t make the film is hard to say as they would have fit perfectly.
Production Design: Back In The Kitchen takes us through one of the films major one ups from its predecessors as the directors explain the design choices in production design and layout as we journey through breakfast bogs, Ham canyon and Candyrock mountain. Whilst Anatomy of a Foodimal takes us on a similar jaunt taking a peep at the creation of the pun based army of secondary characters such as Shrimpanzees, Watermelephants and Apple-Piethons. Cloudy Cafe: Who’s On The Menu gives the films stars a chance to profess love for their characters.
Shrimpanzees, Watermelephants and Apple Pie-thons, Oh my!
Awesome End Credits gives the viewers a look behind the scenes at the production of the end credits, a major project employing stop motion, 2D and live action puppets so it is excellent to see the specifcs of the stop motion set which used replacements for some of the characters being applauded.
The La-da-dee music video is basically a pre-packed pop video which gave me an excellent opportunity to use the menu options and quickly and easily navigate along to the next special feature which was far more up my street Building the Foodimals where senior animation supervisor Peter Nash commentates on the movement of the food types. Its fascinating understanding the thought processes that go into the movement and performance of a character and whilst some animators may go “puh, duh!” and scoff at including such information others may slap their heads and bellow “Of course!” before scuttling off to give more considered thought into their own work. Either way its interesting stuff. The same goes for Delicious Production Design and its accompanying commentary from Production Designer Justin Thompson who explains the creative choices of locations such as San Franjose and Swallow Falls utilising high tech rendering techniques that create bio-luminescance and acrylic washes and other more “home made” textures that help stylise the film.
The filmmakers commentary from Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn is ANOTHER great insight into the film from the directing duo that are not afraid to get technical, namedrop hard working co-workers or to entertain with production tales.
Oh and last but by no means least there is the actual film which I loved.
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 is available now on Blu-Ray and DVD
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