Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)

Summary:
A ne’er-do-well inventor named Flint Lockwood botches one experiment after another while the local economy of the small island he lives on goes down the tubes too. A botched project unexpectedly leads to a big break for Lockwood and his town as well as for aspiring weather girl Sam Sparks, but circumstances don’t quite turn out to be the bowl of cherries that they initially seem.
Tiny Summary:
Food falls from the sky. Meanwhile, silliness!

Yay!:
This movie was stuffed with hilarious moments. I’m sure that if I were to watch it again I would find even more random little things to laugh at. There are nods to adult comprehension level humor throughout, but still enough just plain silly jokes and gags so that kids aren’t left scratching their heads. Happily, however, the movie avoids relying on bodily humor as a way to cater to the younger crowd (which I maintain is OK as long as used sparingly), instead opting for slapstick and scenarios kids recognize, like being the odd one out at school and trying to make friends.

Also, let’s talk about the surprisingly varied all star cast for a second. Usually I frown upon big names doing the voices for animation, because to me it’s distracting to be thinking “This is Billy Crystal as Calcifer” instead of “This is the fire demon Calcifer!” (see Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) dubbed and then subtitled for details). Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs features the not entirely superstar but definitely talented talents of Bill Hader, Anna Faris, and Andy Samberg. However, it also has Mr. T (!!!), Neil Patrick Harris, James Caan and Benjamin Bratt. I like all of those people exponentially more now that they were associated with this movie—totally unexpected and zany. Yes, zany.

Now down to the nitty gritty. What can make an animated movie special beyond the level of story? The animation style itself! This includes character design, the way the characters and objects move, color, faithfulness to or departure from reality, and stuff like that. Here we are treated to a pleasantly bright but not over the top color palette, very candied but definitely balanced out by some weird and definitely not aesthetically pleasing imagery (see the water to food conversion machine near the end). Why is color important? You might not consciously register color when you go to watch a movie (animated or otherwise), but it helps set the tone for you on some level. Here the colors work to make you feel happy and interested all the way through, even during scary or sad moments. It’s a kid’s movie, so that’s perfect.

I also think that the 3-D technology was utilized very well here. I am not a fan of 3-D just for the sake of theme park moments like shrapnel flying toward the audience, and I don’t get it when movies are 3-D just because (I saw Coraline (2009) in 3-D and walked out wondering why they bothered). In Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 3-D helped bring to life otherwise very 2-D cartooney characters, and to help the audience visualize some very farfetched scenarios (e.g. cheeseburgers raining from pink and purple clouds). Basically, the way this movie uses 3-D helps us invest more fully in the fantasy world, which is great!

Going back to the character design, the characters are very stylized, and in a good way. There is no pretense of any type of life-like representation going on here. All of the characters, human, food, and animal alike, are bendy, squashy, and stretchy to the extreme, have huge expressive eyes, and are pretty much visually appealing all around. One of my favorite moments is a self-reflexive nod to the improbability of the characters’ anatomy, which occurs when Flint has to puff out his lips to kiss Sam, because his nose is so large that he can’t possibly reach her face with his mouth otherwise. I bring this point up because recently I saw Up (2009) and one of my major qualms with it was that I found the main characters to be duds in terms of visual appeal. Even the golden retriever Dug wasn’t really visually cute to me, which is saying something considering his addendum to every sentence was “…because I love you.” Not to imply that a character has to be cute or cuddly to get me to like it. Just… appealing. I guess it’s a personal taste issue.

Boo!:
The only drawback I could come up with for this movie was the price. I saw it as a matinee at my local Regal Cinemas and it cost $12.50 plus tax. Kind of a lot of money for a movie in general! However, I think the extra price is supposed to be because of the use of 3-D, which I already decided was justified in the case of this movie. Plus I really think you should see this one in theaters, because on the small screen the colors wouldn’t be as bright, the 3-D effect would be lost, and overall it just wouldn’t be as cool.

Overall:
This movie was great and you should go see it if you are at all interested in animation, children's films, or laughing a lot for about an hour and a half!

Also: The extended trailer for the upcoming Where the Wild Things Are literally made me cry. Again. Looks. SO. AMAZING!