Based on the children's book by Judi and Ron Barrett, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs gleefully takes the simple idea of food raining from the sky to ridiculous, over-the-top proportions. What could've been a flashy but uninteresting movie is instead filled with humor, heart, and action. An amazing voice cast, wonderful animation, and a nice 3D presentation all help make this movie a lot of fun.
The story revolves around Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader), an inventor whose creations always seem to wreak havoc in his hometown of Swallow Falls. The town, housed on a small island "under the 'A' in Atlantic" Ocean, has fallen on hard times. The town's sardine canning plant has closed down and now the residents live only on the leftover sardines.
Hoping to save the town, Flint invents a machine that turns water into food. In an attempt to get the machine working, he launches it into the stratosphere. This destroys the theme park the town banked on to draw tourists. Suddenly, cheeseburgers rain from the sky and everything changes.
No one has to eat sardines any longer and the town has something to put it on the map. However, when the machine starts to get overworked, even stranger things start to happen.
When a movie features the credit "A Film By A Lot of People," you know that it doesn't take itself seriously. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs has a hip, fresh feel without seeming forced or edgy. There are a lot of great gags throughout the film, including many background gags that callback to things seen earlier in the movie. The movie also pokes fun at Jerry Bruckheimer-esque blockbusters, especially in its action scenes.
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