First Installment Wins: Readers of the second book, Pickles to Pittsburgh, don't think of it as highly as they do the first. Tellingly, the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 has nothing in common with it, aside from the basic premise of returning to Chewandswallow after the storms.
"Sirius" by The Alan Parsons Project gives an epic yet eerie atmosphere to the island's grand reopening, perfectly capturing both the glory of Flint's big moment as well as a sense of foreboding dread before the spaghetti twister hits.
Younger fans could be forgiven for thinking that “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows” by Lesley Gore was written for this movie because it fits the iconic “Sunny…side up!” scene to perfection.
Base-Breaking Character: Out of an otherwise beloved cast of characters, Steve has the most divisive fanbase. With one part praising his ability to talk, his comic relief status, and ripping apart gummy bears while others criticize him for being a "useless" sidekick and find his antics annoying.
During the food storm, a giant pancake falls on top of the school, complete with butter slices and maple syrup. The children's reaction? Shouting "NO SCHOOL!!"
Flint taking the Snow Ball fight a little too seriously, breaking into a family's house just to pelt them. The camera angle in the latter scene is made to resemble a Third-Person Shooter.
Two guys are shown holding signs reading "The world ends tomorrow" and "The world ends today", respectively. Food falls and crushes the guy whose sign reads "the world ends tomorrow". The other guy throws up his sign in delight, shouting "I WAS RIGHT!"
First Installment Wins: Though the second film is still overall liked, most fans prefer the first film for its stronger story and character development.
Genius Bonus: Some viewers might have predicted the dam shattering due to it being shaped the wrong way (convexed AWAY FROM the load of food, not towards it like real dams).
Bruce Campbell playing a character that became fatter and meaner over time, while also (albeit unintentionally) putting several lives in danger? Hmm...
The advent of 3D printing has allowed for the creation of artificial food, ala the FLDSMDFR. Granted, the machine in the movie uses water, while real life 3D Printing uses edible printing material that emulates the texture and taste of the real food.
Just Here for Godzilla: Plenty of fans of Clone High went to see this movie just because Phil Lord and Chris Miller were directing it.
Moral Event Horizon: If Mayor Shelbourne didn't scoot across this after overloading Flint's machine to generate as much food as possible, and fight Flint to keep him from deactivating it, resulting in him accidentally destroying the computer needed to give it the kill code and go out of control, putting the entire world at risk, then he definitely did after deciding to set Flint up as the scapegoat to turn the town against him and protect himself. No wonder he gets arrested.
Though the actual animation of the food is fantastic, looking at so much of it for 90 minutes may make you start to feel queasy after a while.
The Mayor himself. For one thing, he is constantly glistening with sweat. Then he's shoveling food into his mouth with every scene he's in. At one point, he eats a hot dog about as tall as he is, and when he talks to Flint after, the hot dog is still visible in his mouth.
One of the attractions of the new Chewandswallow is a nacho-cheese hot tub. As in, people are supposed to sit in the melted cheese, and then eat it. It's hard to tell what's grosser, the idea of sitting in a batch of melted cheese, or eating it when it's been filled with who knows how many people.
After he snaps out of his "food coma", Cal vomits from all the candy he's eaten. Thankfully, that part is censored, but then Earl kisses him on the mouth...and gets vomit on his lips.
Reviews Are the Gospel: When the movie was initially released in 2009, it was fairly well-liked and successful at the box office. In the years since it came out, particularly when the sequel came out, several animation aficionados, Mat Brunet being the most prominent example, have come out and made their case for it being a bad film. While the Cloudy movies haven't gained an outright hatedom, they have received more vocal criticism (justified or not) in comparison to 2009-2010.
Visual Effects of Awesome: Admit it. You might not see it the first time you see the movie, but you will eventually realize how real some of that stuff looks.
, sung by Shoko Nakagawa is similarly upbeat and catchy.
