Carrie [2013]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller-Seitz) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Carrie [2013] (directed by Kimberly Pierce, screenplay by Lawrence D. Cohen and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa based on the novel by Stephen King [IMDb]) by all accounts has had some pretty large blood-stained galoshes to fill.  After all, Brian DePalma's Carrie [1976] starring Sissy Spacek (then already 28 but looking youngish enough to play the role of a naive/abused 18 year old high school senior) pretty much set the bar for a generation of creepy gross-out teenage slasher revenge flicks that followed.  In contrast, Pierce's version starring Chloë Grace Moretz an actual teenager (who consequently COULD NOT BE SHOWN NUDE) has a positively quaint even "comic book" quality to it.  To be sure, IMHO the R-rating is still justified as the mother-daughter relationship between Carrie and her mom (played excellently if also far more sympathetically by Jullianne Moore in this version than the "she's _just_ a religious-crackpot" style of the 1976 version) remains, well, disturbing.  (Can the reader guess that I've _never_ been much of a fan of the 1976 version? ;-).

So I actually LIKE this new version.  And to the question "was there really a need to remake this film?"  I would answer a manifold yes:

First, I do believe that the fundamental story line of Carrie - a picked-upon teenager at school who simultaneously has to deal with "issues at home" - has always been a valid one.  Indeed in recent years, bullying has (IMHO finally) gained appropriate attention as a national problem among our nation's youth and in our schools.

Second, while the general stylistic creepiness of DePalma's 1976 version was no doubt influenced in good part by the success of the similarly über-creepy Rosemary's Baby [1968], The Exorcist [1973] and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre [1974] and 1976 was still less than a decade after the final collapse of the Production Code with a whole generation of new and since then legendary film-makers of the likes of Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather [1972], Apocalypse Now [1979]), Stanley Kubrick (The Clockwork Orange [1971], The Shining [1980]), Roman Polanski (Rosemary's Baby [1968], Chinatown [1974]) and Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver [1976], Raging Bull [1980]) in addition to Brian DePalma (who also made  Scarface [1983]) each scrambling one over the other to "prove themselves" in good part by splashing previously unimaginably violent and/or sexual imagery on the screen, 2013 is NO LONGER 1976.  "The Thrill is Gone" as famed blues guitarist B.B. King would sing.  So while certainly there remain plenty of B-movies that continue to peddle in graphic sexual and violent imagery, for a film to be taken seriously by critics and audiences alike, such graphic imagery today has to seen as somehow furthering the story.  For instance, while the violence present in Quentin Tarentino's films (one thinks of Inglorious Basterds [2009] and Django Unchained [2012]) is generally grudgingly accepted as serving a purpose to his films' plots, the gratuitous violence of his many imitators is generally dismissed as stupid.  Similarly, second generation feminism has brought the era of gratuitous nudity in Hollywood's films largely to an end.  Today's young actors and actresses are largely demanding that if they are asked to take off their clothes for some part of a film, that their exposure serve an actual purpose in the plot.  So I found the relative "comic book hokeyness" of the new 2013 version of Carrie a breath of fresh-air that will should the film more accessible to young people than the older and now heavily dated 1976 version. 

Third, while some of the creepiness of the 1976 version may now seem rather dated, it must be said that social / religious extremism has certainly made a comeback in recent decades.  Who honestly would have imagined 10-20 years ago that a significant portion of the American population would stubbornly cling as virtual articles of faith to the beliefs that Obama, the nation's current President, was _not born_ in this country, that he "palled around with terrorists," was "secretly a Muslim," and was bent on "taking away our freedom?"  Even the offices of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have organized now, two years running, a summer "Fortnight for Freedom" granting religious cover to kooks who seem to really believe that the Obama Administration is hellbent on instituting the worst excesses of the French, Russian and Mexican Revolutions (as if allowing women, Catholic and non, access to birth-control pills or granting equal rights to homosexuals is somehow equivalent to sending priests to the Gulag, blowing-up churches and shooting-up nuns.  My parents, Czech, lived under both actual Nazis and actual Communists and even I'm named after an uncle was jailed by actual said Communists in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s.  So I find the comparison of Obama to actual Communists unequivocally ridiculous).  All this is to say that IMHO it's NOT IN ANY WAY INAPPROPRIATE to revisit TODAY a story involving a deeply troubled mother who's come to hide a good deal of obvious inner turmoil behind a cover of tragically deranged theology that she tries to impose on her daughter Carrie that in the 2013 film even Carrie finds unconvincing: "But God is good mom," Carrie tries to tell her. 


Finally, there have also been social/technological developments since 1976 that incorporated into the 2013 version help make the new version feel fresher.  First, not only has bullying at school come to be seen in recent years as a national problem but even the idea that popular girls would sometimes choose to be purposefully "mean" to other girls to protect their privileged positions has been identified/popularized in recent years (Mean Girls [2004]).  Second in the new version of the film, when Carrie's classmates ridicule the naive/terrified Carrie having her first period by throwing tampons at her, Chris Hargenssen (played by Portia Doubleday) the film's chief "Mean Girl" captures the scene on her smart phone and later posts it online.  And when Carrie starts to realize that she may have telekinetic powers, she researches it, in part, on YouTube as well.  Finally, an effort is made to show in the 2013 film that not of Carrie's classmates were out to get her.  A fair number step-up at various times to defend her.  All this is to no avail as ... well if you know the story ... you know how it must ultimately end.  

The overall effect of the new version is to produce a far-less creepy "Carrie light" that while still appropriately R-rated (I do believe that parents ought to have a say in whether/how their teens see the film) is far less disturbing than the 1976 stylized/dated original.  And I do believe this to be a good thing.  As I noted at the beginning of my review here, I do believe that the fundamental story, that of a picked-upon teenager at school who also has had to deal with "significant issues at home," is a valid one.  And at the core, Carrie really deserves our sympathy.  So good job Ms Pierce and Ms Moretz, good job!


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Inequality for All [2013]

MPAA (PG)  RE.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
RogerEbert.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Inequality for All [2013] (directed by Jacob Kornbluth) is a documentary showcasing the argument that author, professor, lecturer Robert Reich former Labor Secretary under President Clinton has made for much of his career: PROSPERITY REQUIRES A THRIVING MIDDLE CLASS and thus society is served best when its policies are geared toward strengthening the Middle Class.

Built around a class that Reich was teaching at ... UC Berkeley, Reich does argue that "job creation" is really driven by MIDDLE CLASS CONSUMER SPENDING.  To make the point, the documentary interviews a sympathetic Bay Area multimillionaire businessman who points that "rich people actually spend a relatively small amount of money."  For instance, he says: "As a multimillionaire, I really don't spend $500 a day on really expensive meals.  A lot of times, [Chinese] take-out suits me just fine... I also don't need 50 or a 100 pairs of jeans.  Three suit me just fine."  The point is that the economy is much better served if there'd be 40-50 middle class people with enough money to spend $10-15 several times a week on "Pizza" and "Chinese take out" or EACH being able to purchase 3 good pairs of jeans ... It's THAT KIND OF MIDDLE CLASS CONSUMER SPENDING THAT _CREATES AND SUSTAINS JOBS_.

Reich also argues that "globalization" does not necessarily make the destruction of the Middle Class inevitable.  Asking his class which country -- the U.S., France, Germany, Japan or China -- most benefits from the manufacture and sale of iPads, he surprises EVERYBODY (including me) that the country that BENEFITS THE MOST from the manufacture and sale of iPads is NOT China or even the U.S. but GERMANY.  This is because while iPads are famously ASSEMBLED in China where workers are paid dirt wages THE PARTS requiring a HIGHLY TRAINED WORKFORCE capable of MANUFACTURING HIGHLY PRECISE PARTS are MOSTLY MADE IN GERMANY and then (in descending order) in the U.S. and Japan.  So manufacturing does not MERELY depend on the cost of labor BUT ALSO ON ITS RELATIVE SKILL.  And it is true that GERMANY has historically SPENT ENORMOUS AMOUNTS OF ITS TAX DOLLARS ON EDUCATION/TRAINING ITS WORKFORCE.

It all makes for a very interesting (and positive) argument: It is possible to build / regulate our society in a way that SUPPORTS / PROMOTES THE INTERESTS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS.  And in doing so, Reich argues that EVERYONE BENEFITS including the Rich.  For when in the last century was the U.S. MOST PROSPEROUS?   In the 1950s-60s WHEN IT HAD THE STRONGEST MIDDLE CLASS. When was it in crisis?  In the 1930s (During the Great Depression) and NOW (During the Great Recession) when the Middle Class was/is on its knees and (consequently) economic disparity was the highest.

For even the Rich need a Middle Class capable of buying the stuff that their factories/shops make and sell. 


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Baggage Claim [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RE.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (D)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky ) review

Baggage Claim [2013] (written and directed by African American writer, playwright and film-maker David E. Talbert) is an African-American oriented romantic comedy in which, in contrast to most Hollywood produced films, almost all of the characters and the actors/actresses playing them are African American.  The "niche" quality of the film would help explain why despite the luke-warm (to worse...) reception of the film by most mainstream movie critics, the film had a buzz in the African American press [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] and three weeks out it remained in the top ten at the American box office.  (Note that quite impressively the CNS/USCCB's own reviewer gave the film a basically positive review).

So what's the film about?  Montana Moore (played by Paula Patton) is a young/attractive Baltimore based African American flight attendant who doesn't have much of a care in the world until her mother (played by Jenifer Lewis) arrives with news that Montana's _younger sister_ Sheree (played by Lauren London) just got engaged to get married and then (Sheree's still in college) to a college Heisman Trophy contender (ie the guy's "a catch").  The news sends older sis Montana's inner life into a spin revealing resentments against mom ("she's been married FIVE TIMES...") and insecurities ("Why can't I seem to find a guy?").

Well it turns out that Montana's kinda got a guy, a Chicago businessman named Graham (played by Boris Kodjoe) who she's been dating for a while and who's invited her to Chicago for Thanksgiving (a few weeks away).  "He's invited me over for THANKSGIVING," Montana tells her fellow flight attendant BBFs Gail (played by Jill Scott) and Sam (played by Adam Brody), "And that can only mean one thing!"  Poor Montana thinks that one thing is AN ENGAGEMENT RING, but it turns out that Graham has quite another thing in mind:  After enjoying an afternoon with her on his yacht on Lake Michigan (as a Chicagoan, I found this one scene the most amusing of the film as ... NO ONE IN HIS/HER RIGHT MIND WOULD TAKE  A DATE ON A "ROMANTIC CRUISE" ON HIS/HER YACHT ON LAKE MICHIGAN IN LATE NOVEMBER as it would be either raining or practically SNOWING in Chicago at that time ;-) he delivers her to a posh hotel room in the city and tells her that he "has to fly to Washington for a meeting" (She just flew-in from the Baltimore-Washington DC area to be with him) but that "he'll be back" and he "got her the best hotel suite in the city."  Hmmm...

When Montana calls her friend Gail back home, Gail smell a rat ... and of course Gail's right.  Turns out Graham is married and wanted a girlfriend waiting for him "in the best hotel suite in the city" in case he got tired of spending Thanksgiving with his pregnant wife at home ... Men can be really slimy jerks...

So Montana returns home from Thanksgiving without a ring and in something of a panic as she thinks she's just gonna _die_ if she, as her little sister's "maid of honor," doesn't have a date for her littler sister's Engagement party sometime just after the New Year.  What to do?

That's when Sam, her other flight attendant BFF, comes up with a plan: As a flight attendant, Montana's gone out with all kinds of interesting, eligible men over the years.  Sure most of them turned out to be jerks BUT "that was then" maybe one or two of them "changed" since then.  And since she's a flight attendant with friends across the industry, it should not be hard for her friends (in reservations, at the check-in counters, heck even at the TSA check-points) to let her know when said past boyfriends would be traveling so that she could "just happen to run into them" again -- on a flight "between LA and Houston" or "Atlanta and New York", etc (Okay, IT'S KINDA CORNY ... BUT IT'S A ROM-COM.  ROM-COMS ARE GENERALLY KINDA CORNY ;-)

So during much of the rest of the movie, we get to see Montana "just happen to run into" one former schmuck after another and, surprise, surprise, most of the former schmucks turn out to continue to remain schmucks... BUT there's ALSO another guy, named William WRIGHT (played by Derek Luke) who doesn't travel at all, who's actually her neighbor back in Baltimore, who she actually knew all her life and went to school with, who's just RIGHT THERE, ALL THE TIME ... ;-).  Well you figure it out ;-) ;-)

Rom-coms have to END WELL.  So ... YES the I return to the obvious observation that the story's "kinda corny" ... BUT it's also kinda cute/endearing ;-).  And I do agree with the CNS/USCCB reviewer that while, yes, the film continues to suggest that extra-marital sex between SOs is "okay" (and we in the Church would, of course, "beg to differ") all things considered, this rom-com is actually quite good and has a nice modest message: You don't have to be a jet-setter (or rich or "important") to be happy ... Montana learns that and perhaps many viewers will appreciate that message as well ;-)


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With You, Without You (orig. Oba Nathuwa Oba Ekka) [2013]

MPAA (Unrated)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

With You, Without You (orig. Oba Nathuwa Oba Ekka) [2013] (written and directed by Prasanna Vithanage) is a Sri Lankan film (subtitled in English) that played recently at the 2013 (49th) Chicago International Film Festival.

Set presumably in northern Sri Lanka, and in the context of the recent (more-or-less) end of the 30 year Tamil (ethnically-South Indian) insurgency in Sri Lanka against the indigenous-Buddhist majority, the film is about a still relatively young Sri Lankan (Buddhist) pawnbroker Sarathsiri (played by Shyam Fernando) who falls in love with and marries a Tamil (interestingly CATHOLIC) refugee named Selvi (played by Anjali Patil).

Now where were either Sarathsiri's or Selvi's kin?  Everything else about the film's setting and the characters presented would suggest that the story was taking place in a rather traditional part of Sri Lanka and that the  two main characters came from traditional backgrounds.  Where did Sarathsiri get the money to start, presumably on his own (without his family ...) pawnbroker business?  And what was Selvi's story?  It's clear at the beginning of the film that she was living with relatively distant (and relatively resentful...) relatives and that she was "from somewhere else" but from where? and why?

The story, often beautifully filmed (both the lovely Sri Lankan countryside and honestly the lovely actress Anjali Patil are beautiful to watch), evokes a gentle "personalist" air akin to that of the Brazilian film Central Station (orig. Central do Brazil [1998] about a previously "hardened by life" middle-aged woman deciding to help a 10 year old recently orphaned Rio de Janeiro street kid who comes into her life, and the more recent Mexican small-in-scope immigration drama Here and There (orig. Aquí y Allá) [2012] about a simple family from a nondescript village situated somewhere in the mountains of Guerrero, Mexico, whose husband/father comes into and out of their lives whenever he returns back from working in the United States only to leave again for the States when(ever) the money runs out...

The difference between the two films I mention and the current one is that I found the ending of the current film to be far more depressing than it needed to be.  On the other hand, Sri Lanka has gone through a terrible 30 year Civil War and the Tamil minority in particular had suffered tremendously.  So it may be hard as yet to see a light at the end of such a deep and sad tunnel.

ADDENDUM: The part of India that my religious order the Friar Servants of Mary is present in is Tamil Nadu.  So I do know a little about the conflict involving the Tamils living in Sri Lanka.


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Don Jon [2013]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RE.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (A.A. Down) review

Don Jon [2013] (written/directed and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt) IS DEFINITELY NOT FOR KIDS.  It's definitely an R-rated movie and I struggle to imagine any conceivable reason why a Parent would want to take a minor to the film.  That said, readers of my blog would know that I do seek to reward originality and youth and here I simply have to applaud the originality of Levitt's re-imagining of the legendary Don Juan in the person of "Don Jon" a young, buff, blue-collar New Jersey (as "Jersey Shore") sex/porn addict, who early in the film, in the spirit of both the legendary character and of an addict who, of course, doesn't yet see himself as such unabashedly seeks to present to the audience THE CASE _FOR_ PORN :-).

And his "case for porn" is quite simple: Real relationships with real women (and real people in general) are, well, much more complicated than, well, porn.  And therein actually lies the simplest indication that there's something inherently wrong (sinful) with porn.  Sin, be it lying, cheating, stealing, or even murder is almost always "a short cut," a chosen attempt to avoid the pain that is often required to do things honestly/right.  But, I'm getting ahead of myself ... ;-)

Anyway, Don Jon (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) presents himself to the audience as one who lives by a set of simple values:  He loves "his boys" (his buddies), he loves "his girls" (who he picks up and sleeps with), he loves "his ride" (car), he loves "his Church" (where despite picking-up and sleeping with at least one random, good-looking girl a week, plus of course his hours of watching porn, he goes to Confession each week) and he loves "his Porn" (in which he "loses himself" after a long hard day, or even after having sex with the random woman he's picked-up and brought home...  Yes, no matter how gorgeous/willing said random woman was, she didn't seem to satisfy him the way his Porn did...).

Now there will be both Catholics and perhaps especially non-Catholics that would find Don's weekly excursions to the Confessional (after week after week of more-or-less-obviously unreflective debauchery) appalling.  Here I'd like to say that Levitt is overly simplifying things.  I'd find it hard to believe that a Confessor would let someone like Don off that easily.  After all, at minimum, the Penitent is supposed to show remorse and Don more or less obviously does not.

At minimum, _I'd_ ask Don "Why do you look at all that porn?  After all, don't you know that at minimum you're watching (and presumably getting off watching) other people breaking the 6th Commandment?"  "Well who cares?"  "Well, if you DON'T CARE, I CAN'T GIVE YOU ABSOLUTION."  And if said Don started getting into the question of "I DO CARE but ..." THEN there begins a basis for a dialogue that could end with a Penance and Absolution.  But bottom line, the Penitent has to show/indicate remorse.  So as delightfully Don Jon's character is otherwise drawn in this film, I do have object to the way the Confessional scenes were portrayed. 

Similarly, the story's resolution leaves much to be desired from a Catholic moral perspective.  It's probably not much of a spoiler alert to say that at the end of the film Don "leaves his porn behind" ... to enter into an uncommitted but presumably monogamous sexual relationship with a woman.  Yet, while I'd agree that the Confessor's response to Don's objection to the Priest's not "lowering" his Penance when Don proudly tells him that he's left porn for an uncommitted if presumably for the time being monogamous relationship, is "lame," the priest was fundamentally correct.  To be in an uncommitted if monogamous sexual relationship with someone is still (as mentioned above) "a short cut" (and hence a sin).  Here Pope Paul VI, writing in his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae was right that sex only attains its full purpose when it takes place in the context of marriage and is open to the creation of new life.  Anything less, is well, less (and hence, at least to some degree necessarily sinful).

So while contemporary society might applaud Don's decision to "leave porn" and enter into an uncommitted monogamous sexual relationship with someone, the Priest was right, Don was still not where he should be.

But even if Levitt's film IS NOT ANYWHERE NEAR PERFECT from a Catholic Moral Perspective, what a discussion piece it makes!  And then the other characters, including Don's parents (played by Glenne Headly and Tony Danza), Don's gum-chewing / ever texting younger sister (played by Brie Larsen) and the two women, one younger, one older (played by Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore respectively) who "complicate" poor simple Don Jon's life are ALL EXQUISITELY and often HILARIOUSLY DRAWN. 

If nothing else, Don Jon [2013] deserves a screen-play (original or adapted?) nod ;-)


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Gravity [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChiTribune (3 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (B+)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
Chicago Tribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller-Seitz) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Gravity [2013] (directed and cowritten by Alfonso Cuarón along with Jonás Cuarón) in the present day about a routine near-earth space mission that goes horribly awry is certainly one of the best films of 2013 and ought to garner a slew of Academy Award nominations come Oscar time including Best Film, Best Direction, Best Original Screenplay (!), Best Cinematography (!) and almost certainly a Best Actress in a Leading Role (!!) nomination for Sandra Bullock who probably gives her best (and most serious) performance of her life in this film. 

The film begins with three astronauts -- mission specialist Ryan Stone (played by Sandra Bullock), career astronaut Matt Kowalski (played by George Clooney) and another international mission specialist named Shariff (voiced by Paul Sharma) -- on a seemingly routine space walk outside of an American space shuttle performing a maintenance/upgrading mission on the Hubble Telescope.  Then they get word from Mission Control (voiced by Ed Harris) first unconcerned then increasingly alarmed about a Russian space-missile test to destroy one of its own satellites that had just taken place in another part of near Earth space that had spiraled out of control: Yes, the Russian missile had blown-up its intended target, but the result debris field had crashed into other near earth orbiting satellites destroying/dismembering them as well producing a wild, cascading and increasingly chaotic/expanding cloud of space shrapnel threatening everything in its path, including the said, staid Space Shuttle with HT in tow and its crew.

The three are thus summarily ordered to stop what they are doing and begin immediately the process of returning back to their craft.  Ryan Stone, though still suffering from motion sickness (its been her first time in space) still wants to get "her boards" into the Hubble Telescope.  After all, she's been training and waiting A LONG TIME to put these circuit boards into the telescope and to just stop NOW (!) doesn't make sense to her.  But, of course, one of those boards is now taking its time to power-up ...

A few moments later it does not matter, the debris field of space shrapnel arrives to shred the Hubble and put holes into the Space shuttle, apparently killing poor-ole Shariff and sending the newbie mission specialist Ryan Stone as well as veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (at least wearing a jet pack) hurling off into ... empty Space.

OMG ... what now?  Well vet Matt Kowalski is able to retrieve the hurling/spinning Ryan Stone with his trusty ole jet pack and then set them off in the direction of the relatively nearby International Space Station.  But they're not exactly carrying a lot of oxygen with them as theirs had supposed to have been a _routine space walk mission_ taking place just outside a happily well-functioning space shuttle (now destroyed).  What to do?  What the heck to do?

What follows is a both visually AND ABOVE ALL PSYCHOLOGICALLY STUNNING SURVIVAL STORY.  And remember the two main characters in this story are "tech people."  They're practical.  And yet they are thrown here into truly terrifying chaos.  And in this horrifying chaos Ryan comes to realize that facing imminent, horrific and seemingly utterly random/meaningless Death that it'd actually be A REALLY GOOD TIME TO _PRAY_ (!).  And yet, practical as she has been all her life (and probably brought up to be that way) NO ONE EVER TAUGHT HER HOW TO PRAY.  WOW!

And though this movie is thankfully tight/short (only 96 minutes long) ... at this point there's still about 20-30 minutes to go!

This is just an incredible film.  It is chock full of horrifying and utterly impersonal action as only "space shrapnel," hurling about in a both terrifying and yet utterly Newtonian (mechanistic) manner crashing through spaceships (and astronauts...), could provide.  But the action is also beside the point.  This film is ultimately a crash course about Meaning.  And wow, what a crash course it is!


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Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 [2013]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChiTrib (3 Stars)  RE.com (2.5 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune.com (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 [2013] (directed by Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn, characters by Judi and Ron Barrett, story by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Erica Rivinova, screenplay by John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein and Erica Rivinoya) continues and arguably deepens the amiable story begun in the 2009 first cinematic installment of this franchise even as it also arguably muddles its message.

At the end of the first film, the nerdy and starry-eyed wannabe child-inventor Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) growing-up on a remote island somewhere in the Atlantic and the son of a humble sardine fisherman (voiced by James Caan) had succeeded in taming his "Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator" (FLDSMDFR for short ;-).  Flint had designed the contraption to convert simple water into all kinds of kid-friendly/exciting food (in contrast to the sardines that everyone in the town had been accustomed to eating).  However, his machine had gone amuck in that first episode, having been carried into the clouds in a balloon.  The FLDSMDFR then produced such meteorological horrors as spaghetti tornadoes and torrents of cheeseburger and jelly bean rain ;-).   Being able to first find and then "bring down to earth" his contraption, Flint was able to save his island and quite possibly the world from a fearsome if perhaps surprisingly tasty Apocalypse ;-). 

This second installment in the story began with Flint and his friends being visited upon by Flint's Steve Jobs-like idol named Chester V (voiced by Will Forte) the CEO of the most awesome, innovative company on the planet called LIVE, Corp.  

Chester first arrives with "bad news."  He tells Flint as well as the other residents of the island that his company has been contracted by the government to do the "clean-up" of the island, which had been ravaged by the food storms caused by Flint's FLDSMDFR, and in order that his company be able to do so, all the residents will have to be evacuated off the island.  But neither Flint, nor his father and friends -- including Flint's new found girl-friend, the spunky "weather-channel intern" Sam Sparks (voiced by Anna Faris) and her utterly unflappable/no-nonsense "has seen it all" camera man Manny (voiced by Benjamin Bratt), friend of the family/hometown tough guy cop Earl Deveraux (voiced this time by Terry Crews) and local jock/looker and former bully (who used to pick on Flint but now has made-up with him) Brent McHale (voiced by Andy Samberg) -- want to leave.  But Chester insists that they do.  (Hmmm, why would he want them to do that?  What was he up to?)  Finally, to "sweeten the deal," Chester offers Flint an internship at LIVE, Corp's phenomenal (dare one say fabulous ;-) Apple/Google-like HQ in San FranJose and offers to pay for Flints friends to go there as well.  Obviously, Chester's up-to-something ...

Well, Flint is excited as pie to go to LIVE, Corp's HQ to work in one of its sea of cubicles an inventoraror intern and the rest are promised by Chester that they could "come along" to "help" Flint. 

Now each year, at a gigantic stadium-sized company meeting Chester would pick just one of the sea of interns as the inventorator of the year (and reward that exactly one person with an actual paying job ... ;-).  Flint, who's invented a new device that he calls "party in a box" humiliates himself at said gigantic stadium-sized company meeting when he prematurely sets the "party in a box" off to celebrate his "victory" ... when indeed, he hadn't been picked.  Sigh ...

No matter.  Chester has another job for him.  He now wants him and his friends to go back to their island and to find Flint's FLDSMDFR, which it becomes increasingly clear had been Chester's true interest in coming to the island to "clean it up" to begin with.

When the gang returns to the island, they find it marvelously changed.  It's still covered by food (Chester's LIVE, Corp didn't seem to do a lot of "clean-up"), but the food's become "alive" ;-).  Obvious homages to Jurassic Park [1993], the original Despicable Me [2010] and even to Veggie Tales [1993-] follow as the island is portrayed as being covered by Cheesespiders (giant cheeseburgers walking on french-fry legs, catching prey in cheese spray), Shrimpanzees, ferocious Tacodyles protecting their newly hatched "baby tacos," and perhaps most amusingly, sardine-loving pickle-men, who Flint's dad soon happily takes fishing.  

And at the center of it all is Flint's old FLDSMDFR that's brought all these happy and whimsical (and presumably edible) creatures alive.

At the end of the film, Flint has to decide whether to hand over the FLDSMDFR that has created all this unexpected and utterly marvelous life to his idol/mentor Chester V, founder of LIVE, Corp (what does LIVE, Corp spell backwards? ;-) or just let all these whimsical foodimals with their robotic Creator live?   And what about Flint's friends?  He has to choose between Chester and them as well.

It all makes for a remarkable and ... rather mouth-watering parable ;-).  And it may help youngsters treat their food (and the animals from which their food came from) with greater respect.

Except for some occasional (and thankfully rare) "potty humor," and a suprisingly/oddly anti-Silicon Valley message (produced/financed by the gigantic Japanese tech behemoth Sony ... ;-) ... which seems amusingly self-serving/contradictory ;-) I found this to be very enjoyable kid/family friendly film.  So generally good job folks!  Generally good job! ;-)


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