A fun and surreal animation

Rating: 8/10 (23 October 2013)

From an early age Flint Lockwood has been a keen inventor; unfortunately his inventions haven't proved too useful. He lives in the town of Swallow Falls on a remote Atlantic island and when the world stops buying their sardines; living the locals with nothing else to eat he decides to provide an alternative. He makes a machine that can convert water into any type of food. An accident on the day he tests his machine launches it into the clouds and soon it starts raining hamburgers. That isn't all it can make though; he just has to upload the structure of a food and it will rain from the skies. Soon, thanks to visiting TV weather presenter Sam Sparks the world learns what is happening and the town's mayor sees an opportunity. Inevitably there is a problem though; the food starts to mutate and become bigger and bigger and the town is endangered. If it is to be saved Flint and his new friend Sam will have to find a way to shut the machine off.
This animated film was a lot of fun; the premise is delightfully surreal and there are plenty of laughs to be had. Flint is a good protagonist and Sam is fine as the romantic interest; it made a nice change for the leading lady to put on glasses and tie her hair back rather than take them off to become attractive. The character designs are good and fairly distinctive and the voice cast did a good job bringing them to life. The strange weather effects are well designed; I particularly liked the spaghetti tornado. If there is a slight flaw it is that the final effort to turn off the machine seemed to drag on a bit and while most children will probably enjoy it some may be a little disturbed at one point somebody is swallowed by a plucked, headless chicken! Overall I'd recommend this to fans of modern animation; whatever their age.