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Visual:		9.0
Audio:		8.0
Acting:		9.0
Writing:		8.0
Score:		9.0

Director(s):	Phil Lord • Christopher Miller
Writer(s):	Phil Lord & Christopher Miller (screenplay), Judi and Ron Barrett (story)
Starring:	Andy Samberg • Anna Faris • Bill Hader • Bruce Campbell • James Caan • Neil Patrick Harris • Mr. T
Genre:	Animation • Children & Family • Comedy
Website:	http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/cloudywithachanceofmeatballs/
Release Date:	September 18, 2009
Rated:

Up may be the serious contender running after this year’s Best Animated Film Awards, but I’ll be buggered if Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs doesn’t deserve some consideration in its own right. Cloudy has superb 3-D animation, rich character and set illustrations, outstanding vocal talent and easily the funniest script to have graced any movie so far this year. Sandwiched between the animated film everyone’s sure will take the Oscar-cake and the storybook reimagining that has everyone watching and rewatching its trailer (Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are), it feels like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is destined to place second-best in both categories – but considering how strong a fight it’s got in it, it might beat out one or the other.

The city of Chewandswallow has hit its own financial crisis (how apropos): sardines, its sole commodity, aren’t selling like they used to. Or at all. Flint (Bill Hader) grew up on this island in the middle of the Atlantic wanting nothing more than to be an inventor! And, with a few hitches along the way he’s succeeded…somewhat. From his fortress in his dad’s backyard Flint has matured into a spry and awkward young man with the next big thing: a device which transforms water into food. But, just like his ratbirds, remote controlled television and spray-on shoes, the newest invention doesn’t quite behave according to plan. In an endeavor to hook it up to a worthy power supply, his invention flies off into the sky and is ne’er seen again – but something else is: hope.

Within moments the arrival of a food storm heralds a new future for his town and brings tourists and media attention from around the globe, much to the joy of the mayor (Bruce Campbell) and his washed-up childhood star Baby Brent (Andy Samberg). Soon businesses spring up about the island and all seems well for Flint and his newfound love interest, weather girl Sam Sparks (Anna Faris). Dates in giant Jell-O molds, restaurants without roofs and the goodwill of his community come as a wave of relief for the chronically frustrated Flint. Fortune is fickle though. As Flint works hard to meet the food-rain requests of the people the food begins to increase in size until it reaches destructive proportions, leaving Flint, Sam, Brent and an unexpectedly sharp political joke to take down the delicious rainmaker in the sky.

Food might not have known it, but it was ripe for parody. Sitting up there in its lofty tower it probably thought no one would dare to lampoon it with jokes about manchickens, geek chic and a monkey voiced by Neil Patrick Harris. Did you even see that last one coming? We didn’t. There’s no other way to say this: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs hits each and every laugh out of the ballpark. Even the jokes many would dismiss as being old and tired – like an overly enthusiastic police officer voiced by Mr. T- get the badly needed revamp to make them sidesplittingly funny. I can’t tell you the last time I was in a theater where everyone in every seat was cracking up on a minute-by-minute basis – but Cloudy did it.

What’s more: it has a lesson. All kids’ movies have lessons these days. It seems you can’t watch a movie about an old guy with balloons, a robot with expressive mini-windshield wipers or Pandas using martial arts without there being some blatant life lesson slapping the kids in the face like disrespectful salmon to a Grizzly Bear. Yeah, we know you’re there, and we know you think you have something important to say, but please don’t treat us like we’re idiots by plastering the final meaning all over the screen. Now, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs does nothing to hide its lesson about overeating. You get to watch as the short-statured mayor gradually explodes into a Jabba the Hutt-scale character on a scooter. You get to watch as the demands of the people cause them to overlook the danger inherent in their situation in favor of getting what they want. Heck, you even get a “don’t judge the book by its cover” joke thrown in once or twice.

Not once do any one of those lessons feel like an assault on the film’s enjoyable qualities. The lessons are there inherently written into the plot, not layered over like a lead blanket threatening to gradually slow the film to a halt so we have to address it.

The animation style is fantastic with smooth contours and a use of 3-D that is neither distracting nor wasted. Bill Hader and Anna Faris have perfect voices for animated films (especially Hader) and James Caan provides a sympathetic father figure with only the most meager amount of grumbles. It’s a great and unexpected film for the family and it will undoubtedly have the parents laughing as hard as the kids.