Ten Stars or Less

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a unique story that really was a brilliant idea brought to life. We all have an inventor inside of us. Only a handful of us devotes the time and energy to actually bring those ideas to life. Flint Lockwood (Bill Harder) has had a billion visions with only one or two, making it past the test phase, that is, until he creates a machine to enhance food portions. Well, as you can tell from the poster and trailer, this was a massive success, until it turned into a natural disaster. Flint finds love when Sam Sparks (Anna Farris) shows up to tell the world about this massive weather phenomenon. In an attempt to impress the girl, he cranks up his food machine so that it develops its own sense of being, and the rest of the movie is about containing a mess. I think that is where the humour really is, not in Flint’s failed attempts to become recognized, it’s after the pomp and circumstance that he realizes he’s chased down the wrong dreams. That dream led to mountain size spaghetti and meatballs, but that meal wasn’t what the world needed. The never-ending cycle of new food kinda gets old halfway through because obesity is already an ongoing problem, so we don’t hulk size cupcakes. The craziness of the whole concept is what made the film successful. Even the minor plot lines of love, along with a father and son bonding, make for an entertaining movie. It’s hard to say what franchise is more valuable to Sony Animation, but Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is definitely one of the anchors. 6/10