Review: ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’

From the children’s picture book of the same name, Columbia Pictures,  and  Sony Pictures Animation, comes ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,’  a tasty tale of an all-you-can-eat  buffet gone wrong. A well meaning inventor, Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader), has been trying to come up with the one thing that’ll put his experiments (spray on shoes, monkey  thought translator)  on the map, while trying to  help people  at the same time. But everytime his inventions go bust, Flint’s  heavily eyebrowed  Dad (James Caan) frowns on his attempts and tries to persuade him to join the family business. Added to his distress, Flint has been forever bothered and pestered by town brute Brent (Adam Samberg). Aided by Steve the Chimp (Neil Patrick Harris), Flint forges ahead  with his next invention, a water to food machine, and when he  tests his newest creation, it’s accidentally  sent into Earth’s orbit.  Along with  Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), the new, spunky weathergirl, and the locals of the seaside town of Swallow Falls, Flint is  surprised to  see his  machine  pouring down  all kinds of salivating food instead of  rain and everyone celebrates the wonderboy. Like manna from heaven comes mutated  pancakes, juice, ice cream, hamburgers, but after a while, instead of feeding the masses, all these edibles become a virtual food storm with an ala carte spaghetti twister. Flint and  the citizens of  Swallow Falls  now have to find a way to save the world’s appetite from his out of control smorgasbord.

Directors/screenwriters Phil Lord and Chris Miller have taken the  sweet children’s book by Judi and Ron Barrett and  made a film than can stand apart from the 1978 classic. Their hammy, food filled  script will have you chuckling, with lines like, “a breakfast system is on its way…my forecast? Sunny – sideup.”   Be on the lookout for the laughable, standout  characters  of Earl Devereaux (Mr. T), the bubble-butted town cop, his son Cal Deveraux (Bobb’e J. Thompson), and the  conniving Mayor Shelbourne (perfectly voiced by Bruce Campbell) trying to  cash-in on Flint’s food making machine, along  with the additional happenin’ cast of Anna Faris, Bill Hader, Adam Samberg,  and Neil Patrick Harris. The palate filled, scrumptious animation, especially the scene  where the main characters   are seen frolicking around in a room full of jello,  is best seen in 3-D and is accompanied by a mouth watering score from Mark Mothersbaugh (‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist,’ ‘Rugrats’). Rated PG for some mild language, this family friendly ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’ is yummy enough to eat and best served in your local movie theatre.