Review of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) by Ryanm — 22 Sep 2009

Even if oh, so many things differ from the original book, I think I like this hilarious, clever, and inventive film adaption much better. Yes, today, I saw Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and no, it is not the kiddy film you may see it as.

It has some great humor, top-notch animation, and good voice acting. If only it had a stronger theme and weren't so derivative. Cloudy is really a fuse of Surf's Up! type humor and Ratatouille style food.

But it just misses greatness by a mark. Cloudy features a clever and inventive story, but I'll discuss cleverness in the next section. Why you ask? Because being funny and clever doesn't mean the movie has a good story.

Lucky enough for this movie, the story has enough creativity to pass. The story is full of lovable characters, even if half of them have heads a tad too large. The story isn't sophisticated, but its not extremely simple neither.

At least the kids will enjoy it. Story gets a 60%. Cleverness is really the "meat" of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. The humor is very funny at times, but at those unfunny times, annoying.

The humor is about as equal to what you laughed at in Surf's Up!, which is relatively a good thing. Most of the humor is generated by pure randomness and good food jokes. Cleverness gets 80%. Cloudy's animation is not cloudy at all.

In fact, it is almost at it's best. Crystal clear and beautiful looking. The detail is not sophisticated, but it is still fairly incredible. Animation gets 80%. I saw this movie in I-max, so I thought I should say something about the experience.

Although it isn't like they said, you still get a good experience overall. In all the interviews, they say you were going to get meatballs and pies galore, in your face. But that just is not true.

While it is worth seeing in I-max, Cloudy isn't exactly the best I-max experience out there. Although it technically does not count, because it does not ruin the movie, I give the I-max quality 60%.

Cloudy features a rather varied and talented voice cast. Remember the guy from Hot Rod? Well he voices Flint Lockwood, the main protagonist. Anna Farris plays Sam, the love interest of Flint. And Mr. T plays the cop dude.

They all do so great. Voice acting gets a 70%. The music in Cloudy is the only thing that is actually cloudy, which means.....it sucks. I mean, I didn't even want to stick around for the credits because the music isn't really original or catchy.

So really, do you want the score in your soundtrack collection? Music gets 30%. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is overall a great movie, even if it doesn't quite overcome its obvious flaws. I think it is worth seeing in theaters, because it is obviously one of the better '09 films.