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Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Movie Review

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a 2009 animated comedy film from Sony Pictures Animation directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. It’s solid, but it could have been better.

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“I wanted to run away that day,

but you can’t run away from your own feet“

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An aspiring inventor named Flint Lockwood develops a machine that can convert water into food following a series of failed experiments. After the machine begins to develop food storms, Flint must destroy the machine in order to save the world. That’s the premise here and obviously it’s original, inventive, never before done in film and yet simple, cartoony and providing a lot of entertainment. That led to a film that is perfect for kids.

But as an adult, I found it a bit too cartoony in approach and execution. I actually loved some cartoony scenes here, but I really disliked some other scenes which to me weren’t as funny and were too kid-friendly. The film is very strong in its first half as it develops its characters, the city and the overall situation very well and it’s humorous and even smart. But eventually in the second half, it becomes a big mess with action scene after action scene. It just becomes huge frenetic chaos with no intimate moment to cool down the action whatsoever.

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Let’s talk about the characters. They are rather quirky to the point of being excessively oddball, but they still work in the context of what is arguably one big feature cartoon. Flint Lockwood is your typical misunderstood boy genius and weirdo. He’s too typical to make a bigger impression. Sam is actually much better as this inner nerd who tries to be more cool. She can actually be quite funny and I really liked their relationship.

Steve the monkey is a lot of goofy fun, the mayor is a typical but fine villain and the father is an excellent, very well developed character. ‘How To Train Your Dragon’ would do this father-son conflicted relationship much better the next year, but still the relationship that we have here is the heart and soul of the film and the only more sophisticated/emotional part of an otherwise problematically simple film.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs features stunning computer animation, there is no denying that. It was perfect for 3D and I am so frustrated that I didn’t get to see it in theaters as it must have been glorious. The color palette is very bright, but not garish. It’s a colorful movie that is perfect for kids, yet still enjoyable for adults. The food is well utilized both in action and how well animated it is and the highlight is most definitely that gelatinous castle which is simply gorgeous to behold and reminding me impressively of Elsa’s ice castle in ‘Frozen’.

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The movie is very well acted with Anna Farris and Bill Hader both being excellent in their roles. I definitely really liked their romance. I also loved some of the inventive moments with food in the film, especially in the first half, and I certainly found the film quite a lot of fun and also funny at times with solid humor and dialogue. But again, the second half ruins the film for me as it’s simply too bombastic which I strongly dislike. That led to a solid Sony Pictures Animation film that is not one of their best, but certainly miles above their weaker efforts. It’s comfortably in the middle.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a problematic movie which can be too cartoony at times and the second half is simply a giant mess how frenetic and bombastic it is. But the first half is very strong, the characters are positively quirky, the animation is delightfully colorful and its premise is well utilized for some inventive and amusing moments. It could have been much better, but it ended up being just solid.

My Rating – 3.5