Review: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Rating

Director

Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

Screenplay

Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Rob Greenberg (Book: Judi Barrett & Ron Barrett)

Length

1h 30m

Starring

Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Andy Samberg, Bruce Campbell, Mr. T, Bobb’e J. Thompson, Benjamin Bratt, Neil Patrick Harris, Al Roker, Lauren Graham, Will Forte, Max Neuwirth, Peter Siragusa, Angela Shelton

MPAA Rating

Review

Nearly every kid probably fantasized about the idea of food falling from the sky like rain and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs gives those visions life.

Loosely based on an acclaimed book of the same name, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs tells the charming and humorous story of a careless inventor who creates a machine that turns water into food. When an accident unleashes his machine into the atmosphere above his small island town, freak weather events begin where cheeseburgers, hot dogs, and various other types of delectable food begin falling from the sky.

Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) is the inventor and his home of Swallow Falls is filled with a wide array of unique characters, each grounded in realistic archetypes. His father Tim (James Caan) is irascible and dismissive of his non-family tradition career. The mayor (Bruce Campbell) begins as simply corrupt while later becoming an object lesson in overindulgence. Flint’s monkey companion (Neil Patrick Harris) adds some traditional comic relief while “Baby” McHale (Andy Samberg) fills the usual bully role. The only character that doesn’t quite fit is the plucky news reporter (Anna Faris) whose career is turned upside down by Lockwood’s shenanigans.

Sony Pictures Animation has always had the ability to make films that entertain young audiences, and a few older ones as well, but they’ve rarely made films that have been equal parts kid-friendly and adult-approachable material. The Ice Age series was little more than cheap premise buoyed by lame gimmicks, but it sold tickets. This film was a slight departure for them, a chance to branch out into concepts that have more heady ideas at the core while providing enough adult humor to keep the parents from becoming easily annoyed. Although it doesn’t entirely succeed in that respect, it’s an engaging and pensive picture.

Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller know something about creating such movies and their screenplay, co-written with Rob Greenberg, diverts significantly from the source material without losing its charm or creative spark. The animation is crisp and fluid while the story is equal parts ludicrous and grounded. For kids who need simple lessons about overeating, political greed, capitalistic collapse, and bullying, it provides plenty of grist for the mill. It’s also easily digestible for adults who might have to have difficult conversations with their children afterwards.

Among Sony’s slate of animated features, this is among their better efforts. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs still focuses too much on kids’ entertainment over thoughtful narrative but it sits close enough to the line that anyone with the ability to shave off a few years to appreciate its zaniness will be able to do so without feeling pandered to.