It was nice to see Favreau return to the small scale Swingers type indie setup that made his name, after those huge CGI Hollywood movies.
You can tell how loved Favreau is in the industry by the number of massive Hollywood stars willing to take a pay cut to be in this. I loved how "Iron Man," Robert Downey Jr, reunited with Favreau, having done two Iron Man movies together.
Favreau famously used to be fat, then lost a ton of weight, so heaven knows how he coped with so much food porn. Food porn always makes me want to eat. I think the Stanley Tucci movie "Big Night," is my favorite one.
As usual with Favreau projects, there is always something humorous and down to earth in dialogue exchanges. For example, the way Leguizamo's character joked about "cerveza" being better than beer, to get a kid to taste it, and of course, like any kid, he hates it anyway.
This is a loveable cameo-boosted, wittily written, family movie that may not be super original, following a tried and true formula, but it's sweetness and charm is utterly winning and endlessly rewatchable.
My second favorite food movie. :)