Movie Primer: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

This is a short primer for goofball animated comedy Cloudy With A Chance of Meat Balls. The film with have its wide release in 3D, on September 18th 2009. The trailer for this film can be found at http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/cloudywithachanceofmeatballs/

The Plot: Flink Lockwood is just a scientist trying to help the world with his inventions. Sadly none of his devices ever seem to work out. That is until he creates a machine that converts water into food. At first his discovery as seen as a huge success and he is a big hero, but then things go wrong. The machine gets a mind of its own and starts to cause food to rain from the sky. Sure that may not seem like a big deal at first but when pancakes the size of a house is raining down and there are twisters made of spaghetti, things start getting rough. Only the scientist and his pet monkey can bring the haywire machine down.

Star Power: Bill Hader, one of the SNL regulars lends the voice for Flint where as the voice of the love interest/news reporter is given by Anna Faris, last seen in The House Bunny. James Caan and Bruce Campbell also give voice talent for this animated comedy.

Behind the Screen: The movie is based on the children's book written by Judi and Ron Barrett but the movie expands their story quite a bit. The movie ends up being both a dedication to the creativity of the kid's book and a spoof on disaster movies. The team of Phil Lord and Chris Miller directs the movie. Both of these guys also wrote the screenplay for the movie. This is their first major film but they were the force behind the underrated comedy Clone High.

What to expect: The animation in this movie does not really inspire much awe. Its not that the animation is bad at all, in fact it looks quite colorful and stylish. Perhaps the market has become oversaturated with these animated 3D comedies for kids, because this movie just does not seem to stand out at all. My 7 year old wanted me to play the trailer a second time so there might be something I am missing, but still I have not been blown away with the material. They do have some really funny people doing the voice work and the writers have proven their worth with Clone High. Perhaps there is more than meets the eye with this animated adventure.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844471/
http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/cloudywithachanceofmeatballs/