Movie Review: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

The apocalypse by way of bacon, spaghetti, and fudge: is this the latest from Roland Emmerich?

Based on a popular 1978 children's book by Judi and Ron Barrett, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" tells the story of a remote island where, thanks to a plucky young inventor, it can rain food. Hamburgers falling from the sky are certainly a nice change of pace from the island's former number one export, sardines, which have become out of fashion due to newspapers reporting that sardines are, in fact, gross.

The inventor is Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader), a geek with daddy issues and a number of failed inventions under his belt, such as his permanent spray-on shoes. When he constructs a machine with the ability to transform water into food, the town's mayor (Bruce Campbell) sees this as the perfect opportunity to draw tourism. They could, you know, export giant steaks, but an island finding great wealth out of their gluttony isn't as cute of a message. Flint meets his love interest, weather girl Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), as she reports the edible forecast.

There are a lot of things you can say with this material, but the film doesn't have the courage to run all the way with it. The excess food is placed behind a dam outside of town, which the mayor ignorantly dismisses until, of course, spaghetti hurricanes cause it's destruction. Because of the relentless onslaught of giant food spectacle, however, most of these ideas are completely drowned out by the film's own syrup. Also, interestingly enough, only one citizen, the mayor, seems to be gaining any weight.

It's unfair to compare all animated films to Pixar, but films like "Up" continue to set the bar for what a smart audience demands out of contemporary animation. "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" starts out terrifically, but it's latter half is an eight hundred pound mountain of Jello-O - all action, all spectacle, no heart. Pixar has also never resorted to a character like the African American police officer (Mr. T, of all people), an amalgamation of every black stereotype you can imagine. Even the montage of sardines didn't leave as bad of a taste in my mouth.

Although starting off strong, "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" devolves into a series of dumb action sequences that will keep your children entertained without challenging them in any way. It's one step above the lowest of trashy animation due to it's gorgeous visuals and a handful of laughs, but we're far from the brilliance of "Coraline", "Up", or "Ponyo".