Big Food and Big Fun in Animated Adaptation of Beloved Book

Rating: 10/10 (19 September 2009)

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS (CWACOM), based on the beloved 1978 children's book by Judi and Ron Barrett, is almost Pixar-level good! My family and I saw this animated treat in 2D rather than 3D because we wanted to take advantage of a local theater's morning matinée. However, we didn't miss the 3D effects in this vivid, playful, rollicking adaptation; we were having too much fun! Written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, CWACOM deftly combines the warmth of a Pixar film with the zany sight gags of a Looney Tunes cartoon. The movie also expands entertainingly on the book's premise about the little town of Chewandswallow (in the film, the town is part of an economically-depressed island, Swallow Falls), where food drops from the sky like rain, with surreally madcap results. The film gives the townspeople more personality, including an endearingly awkward protagonist, young scientist wannabe Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader). When Flint hits on a way to convert water into all manner of foodstuffs, saving his town from poverty and an all-sardine diet, he finally becomes a town hero after years of having his inventions laughed at. To our hero's frustration, his laconic but well-meaning dad isn't quite on board with his son's success yet, fearing he hasn't thought through the possible consequences. (This being an animated film, of course Flint's mom is the only person who believes in him, and of course she dies young.) Flint teams up with aspiring weather-gal Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), who's as ambitious and eager for acceptance as Flint is; merciless childhood teasing led Sam to hide her smarts behind her pretty face and perky personality. The film makes some good points about the pros and cons of craving other people's approval and over-sized food portions. Happily, Lord and Miller put all of this across with a light touch, a refreshing lack of sap and snark, and a super-size helping of hilarity and wit. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the majority of the laugh-out-loud funny gags aren't so ridiculously topical that they'll feel dated by the time the DVD comes out. :-) There are tips of the hat to classic science fiction movies, but those scenes will still be fun even if you've never seen the films in question. The gags aren't just funny, they're plentiful. In fact, our family would love to see CWACOM again to look for all the uproarious background sight gags we missed the first time around! Even Flint's posters of his scientist heroes are funny and clever, drawn to look like rock star pin-ups. There's a side-splitting payoff to every little running gag -- sometimes literally, like with the walking TV Flint invented. As chaos reigns late in the film, a looter carries off a TV -- and Flint's walking TV carries off the guy! (THE TWONKY, anyone? :-)) Spaghetti tornadoes with meatball meteors, feral Gummi bears on the attack, schools closed on account of falling giant pancakes -- what's not to like? The voice cast is terrific, too; in addition to Hader and Faris, we loved James Caan's imitation of James Gandolfini as Flint's dad; Bruce Campbell as the self-serving mayor; Andy Samberg as former sardine factory icon Baby Brent; Mr. T. as gung-ho cop and loving dad Earl; and my favorite, Benjamin Bratt, who's deadpan funny (yes, both Bratt's voice and his animated character's face are deadpan, smarty :-)) as an unassuming bystander who turns out to be a doctor, saving Earl's young son from his food coma: "I came from Guatemala for a better life. Good thing, huh?" As a side note, one plot element that particularly hit home for our family was Sam's peanut allergy; during a climactic action scene, she's scratched by knife-like shards of peanut brittle, resulting in a race against time to get her back to their ride so she can use her Epi-Pen before anaphylactic shock sets in. Our daughter could relate because of her own peanut/tree nut/sesame allergies. Of course, she carries her Epi-Pen everywhere (good girl)!