Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a children’s book created in 1978 by Judi and Ron Barrett that was based around a fairly cute and imaginative concept about an island where the weather consists of nothing but food. It was well received at the time and eventually would get its own film release in 2009. Not only would this animated film be the first project made by then newcomers, Sony Pictures Animation, but would also be the directorial debut for Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who would go on to do such work as The Lego Movie and Into the Spiderverse. For a first outing from a bunch of different people which resulted in numerous issues behind the camera, the film turned out noticeably better than anticipated. Set in the isolated and often looked-down-upon island of Shallow Falls, young aspiring inventor Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) is determined to invent something that will not only save his town being more than just a failing sardine industry, but also make everyone, include his tackle-shop owning father, Tim (voiced by James Caan) look at him as more than just a failure. His latest attempt is a device that turns water into food, which would provide their town with more sustenance than just sardines, but it seemingly backfires and rockets up into the sky. While hope seems lost, a miracle seems to occur when it starts to literally rain food of all kinds, satisfying the townsfolk and making Flint a hero. In order to impress an intern-made-newscaster named Sam Sparks (voiced by Anna Faris), whom he has a crush on, and being whispered sweet nothings by the town’s corrupt mayor (voiced by Bruce Campbell),  Flint starts to overwork the machine by pushing it farther and farther with constant orders and large portions, eventually causing it to glitch and malfunction to the point that it starts to create food-like natural disasters that threaten to destroy the entire world. Now Flint and his group have to venture into the clouds to take down the invention and save the world from this food apocalypse that he himself caused. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs has noticeable problems that both the animation studio and the two directors would later rectify with their later movies, but also showcases blemishes of their strengths that will still developing, are prevalent throughout the picture and add up as the movie keeps going. With a good funny voice cast, colorful and creative animation, and good enough writing around what is seemingly a done-before narrative to make this movie a troubled but enjoyable film.

The concept for the book is such an imaginative and simple idea that it would translate very well to the visual movie eye. With the pictures literally writing themselves in a way that could be fantastical but also decently digestible if handled right, the possibility for a movie was a good one, but its limited and even loose plot which was only meant to sell a message meant that it would need some proper retooling in order to work as a properly structured property. The movie cleverly adds some updates to the idea that make some of the book’s ambiguous ideas into clearly integrated ideas, like the food rain coming from an actual machine, and its comedic sensibilities mixed with ties and spoofs of various disaster movies like Twister, Armageddon and The Day After Tomorrow, it gave the film a recognizable genre to be placed into while still standing as its own creation through its visual style, quirky characters and simplistic but emotion-driven narrative. The film has a nice heart to it that comes from the characters and their quick-to-grasps desires and personalities, and because of how minimal the plot is from the original source, it can come up with its own idea and direction while sticking true to the book’s core idea. Because of this, the movie’s strengths lie in the dialogue, the imagery, and the performances, as well as just how bizarrely likeable and even delightfully weird the film is. It’s a story and an atmosphere that embraces being different and strange, and everything from the animation style, character, and even story reflects this mindset and really lets people have fun with it without delving into annoying territories. The writing, which is also done by Lord and Miller (with additional material from Rob Greenberg), is fast-paced, quirky and even child-like writing in a way that is both funny and memorable and even kind of touching at certain points, and while it is more goofily likeable than extremely clever, there’s a clever visual gag every once and a while that really takes advantage of its premise (the various ways other countries and their landmarks are effected by the food storm are pretty great).  It’s not as quick and perfect as it would later become, but you can see the sprouts of their talent to begin with and what it would later grow into. With that said, some of the film is held back by a whole hump of clichés and a lack of creativity when it comes to how the story pans out. Even with such a fun imaginative concept, the execution of the story is incredibly predictable and almost shamelessly simplistic, to the point where the stakes are very weak, and the ending feels very weightless. Outside of that, the film is essentially intense colorful fluff with cliche plotlines holding it together.

You’ve seen a lot of these kind of characters before in typical disaster films or even in any other animated property, and the on the surface, they aren’t written to be anything that different or new either. With no examples to pull from as the book didn’t really have characters, they would need to create them from stretch and while they are designed in a very entertainingly fun way and house some pretty funny voice actors, they could’ve been done a bit better if they weren’t hinder by some expected cliches. It’s not an idea that really needs incredibly rich or deep characters, but outside of how they are designed and how they are portrayed, none of them stand out as unique personalities. Flint as the lead character has very little definable qualities about him; he’s every outsider scientist trope who’s just a sponge to soak up stupid choices forced onto him by other people and someone who switches his motivation back and forth on a dime just for the story to keep going. He’s not unlikeable in any way, he works with the story being told, and Bill Hader is a very funny actor who can occasionally get a laugh, he’s just a little bland. Due to the expressive and almost formless nature of the animation and the wackiness of the script and scenario, almost every character adopts this chaotic sensibility that makes them all feel like comic-relief roles (even moreso than the actual comic relief characters) and it starts to become a bit overwhelming, especially when a joke is a little too childish even for this film (it doesn’t happen often, but when a joke is pretty lame, it can be a little annoying). Roles like Andy Samberg and Neil Patrick Harris are practically useless and could have been cut altogether, outside of a select few scenes near the end of the film, and while it is nice that all the characters of focus were given something to do during the final act of the film, it doesn’t take away how they weren’t really handled well previously. Though the characters are nothing amazing, the voice cast does do some nice heavy lifting through how well they handled some of these roles. Anna Faris brings a nice sense of awkward charm to the character of Sam, her assistant, Manny (voiced by Benjamin Bratt) gets a few decent scenes through his minimal lines, stoic delivery, and cartoonishly small stature, Bruce Campbell is stuck playing a pretty generic character in the mayor, but his distinct voice does make things a bit more interesting, James Caan as the disapproving father is also a little cliched, but he’s given enough time in the film to become more than just a trope, and his design is really funny and memorable. The crowned king of this film though in terms of the voice talent is easily Mr T as the police officer Earl, as he is a pure delight to hear throughout this entire movie and brings his usual infectious energy and extreme passion to create a really memorable and entertaining character.

The visual design for this movie feels like it perfectly captures the content and creative styling of the book, but also presents this animation studio in a way that showcases its unique qualities against other animation studios. With such strong eye-catching descriptive visuals from the original source, you can just see how that would work great in a movie, and with the movie having a style that is colorful and vibrant, but also quirky and cartoonish, it leads to a lot of great looking set pieces. Seeing food but bigger wouldn’t be that impressive but the different ways it can be shown off in this film takes it to the next step by either seeing it to massive scale, seeing it moulded or associated with something different like a literal house of Jello or a snow day formed by ice cream, and even having it associated with natural disasters like a spaghetti tornado, pizza torpedoes or sentient man-eating cooked chickens (that is a truly horrifying visual). Sony animation has a great shine and color scheme in their films, meaning that the film can literally glow with great lighting and scenery shots, all the food looks wonderful and edible, the locations have great atmosphere with the film’s art direction by Michael Kurinsky, and while the character designs are a bit lazy and can look a little recycled amongst the background characters, they are pretty expressive and can look wild at times. The musical score by Mark Mothersbaugh is also pretty good, containing a preppy and even triumphant piece that can be goofy and simplistic in theory, but is also wholesome enough to work within this realm of reality which can also be said for some of the pop songs included in (even the one in the closing credits by Miranda Cosgrove isn’t too bad).

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a light airy film filled with great looking visuals, some great comedic voice actors, and an occasional really good joke here and there. It’s hard to imagine that this movie could have left such an impression as the source material was only meant for a short story, which explains certain aspects like the predictable story and harmless but interchangeable characters. Even with a few needed improvements, it has enough fluffy goodness to at least warrant one viewing session. It’s much like the pop song that comes with the movie; its corny, its dated, its junky, and it’s pretty obvious how simplistic it is, but it has such a good charm to it through its memorable visuals, talented cast and likeable crazy atmosphere and tone that it’s hard to ignore it. Not amazing, but with a few tasty moments here and there, check it out for yourself. See if the film will offer you up sunny smiles or rainy indifference.