WORSE THINGS HAPPEN AT SEA!

More cheese-centric shenanigans take the multispecies cast of Here Be Monsters (2006) far from the town of Ratbridge.

Faced with a heavy fine for drying their customers’ knickers in public, the rat and ex-pirate crew of the Ratbridge Nautical Laundry reluctantly set out for Black Cabbage Island in the South Pacific to fetch the active ingredient of a popular nostrum called Black Jollop. The revelation that Black Jollop infects all who take it with insatiable “cheese lust”—thus casting Ratbridge’s population of meek, ambulatory cheeses into mortal danger—turns the voyage into a race against time to bring back the cure. Snow trots in challenges ranging from the previous episode’s archvillain Archibald Snatcher and other members of the discredited Ratbridge Cheese Guild to attacks from a rushing horde of “shopping birds.” He intersperses his narrative with so many flashbacks, news reports, farcical set pieces (often involving various sorts of glop), small ink drawings, and larger diagrams or maps that the mission takes on a rambling pace.

There’s foolery aplenty, but this is the sort of sequel that offers more of the same rather than any new twists or developments.