Adam Elliott

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

by Adam Elliott , posted Nov 2 2011 7:30PM

Rated PG – 1h30

Would you rather be drowned in ice cream or be taken out by a giant tasty meatball falling from the sky? Given the choices, there are worse ways to go.

Based on a popular kids book from the 1980’s, this is a cute, but not memorable kids movie.

Flint (Bill Hader) lives on an Atlantic Ocean island known for its sardines. His lifelong pipe dream is inventing, and one day he comes up with device that turns water into cheeseburgers, spaghetti, ice cream, whatever. He achieves the success he’s always craved, but loses sight of what’s important. Then his machine goes crazy and starts dropping bigger and bigger foods from the sky.

I found several kid jokes that I could laugh at, most likely because a lot of the voice work came from Saturday Night Live cast and other performers I like (James Caan, Anna Farris, Neil Patrick Harris, Mr. T.)

Possibly a mistake, but I saw this film in regular old 2-D, even though its also being show in the 3D and IMAX 3D. This is the first go round for Sony’s animation software, and I felt I was watching something visually stunning. The animation felt a touch above the others.

What’s also noteworthy is the fact that you may leave the theater feeling hungry. The food looks delicious, although the machine only seems to churn out food that kids will like. I guess a giant piece of broccoli isn’t as much fun as a Jell-O castle.