Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
So I am actually a little late with this review and I apologize. Life got in the way a bit. I went and saw this movie late Thursday night. Which is rare for me. It meant that I got home exceptionally late and I did not find time to write a review.
But none the less, here it is.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a movie based off a book. And unlike most movies based off a book, it is actually better than the book. Okay that isn't true. The two are not very comparable. The book is a children's story written by Judi Barrett and illustrated by Ron Barrett and it was one of my favorite bedtime stories while growing up. The book's story is simplistic but still amazing and involves the story of a town called Chewandswallow where food regularly falls from the sky. There are no restaurants, no need for cooking, and there is always plenty of food. But the story itself, like all children's books, is a lesson how some things that seem great at first, don't always hold up well when you apply the rest of the real world.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs the movie, is the book, plus more. Because you honestly can't make a full length feature film based upon a twenty or so page book. The movie pays homage to the book by including every single illustrated page in some form or fashion, and keeps the overall theme of "Fantastic things aren't necessarily good". But includes a healthy does of "Its okay to be strange", "You should show your children that you love them.", and "Being a mad scientist is awesome". Okay maybe that last one wasn't a /direct/ theme...
The movie has appeal for all ages. It doesn't talk down to its audience. Being an adult myself with no children, simply going for nostalgia's sake, I found the film highly entertaining. It is very much a comedy with a bit of action and romance. The movie focuses on two main characters Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader), our geeky, smart, attention deficit resident mad scientist, and Sam Sparks, would be perky intern and weather reporter from the mainland news organization. You can kind of see where this is going. Mad Scientist creates a machine which makes the sky rain food. Perky weather girl gets her chance to finally become weather woman. Town has food rain down upon it until the machine begins to go haywire and science has to go save the day!
Luckily the movie is way better than the condensed plot. The meat of this movie is actually in its characterization and sub plots involving all the characters of the town. To go into more description would be to spoil a lot of good humor.
Overall this is a movie everybody should attempt to see. As a small end note I went to see it in 3D and while I didn't feel that the 3D was as well used as in Monsters vs Aliens the added effect was nice. There were no real gimmicks added, I felt, that broke immersion like a ping pong ball or an intentional flying at the audience by something random. If nothing go for Neil Patrick Harris's voice cameo. I'll give you a dollar if you can pick it out without using IMDB or the credit.
So obviously I easily identified with the main character. And the romantic subplot amused me greatly. And Oh wow does this movie make me want to have a monkey. Monkeys are awesome! And they fling brown ice cream! Hehe.
There were just so many little scenes that help define the characters that I love about this film. For example the various inventions, all of which in some way end up helping Flint. I loved Flint's laboratory. I loved how he vocalized when he was focusing. There were so many things to find funny with this film that I have a hard time finding something to criticize.
But none the less, here it is.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a movie based off a book. And unlike most movies based off a book, it is actually better than the book. Okay that isn't true. The two are not very comparable. The book is a children's story written by Judi Barrett and illustrated by Ron Barrett and it was one of my favorite bedtime stories while growing up. The book's story is simplistic but still amazing and involves the story of a town called Chewandswallow where food regularly falls from the sky. There are no restaurants, no need for cooking, and there is always plenty of food. But the story itself, like all children's books, is a lesson how some things that seem great at first, don't always hold up well when you apply the rest of the real world.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs the movie, is the book, plus more. Because you honestly can't make a full length feature film based upon a twenty or so page book. The movie pays homage to the book by including every single illustrated page in some form or fashion, and keeps the overall theme of "Fantastic things aren't necessarily good". But includes a healthy does of "Its okay to be strange", "You should show your children that you love them.", and "Being a mad scientist is awesome". Okay maybe that last one wasn't a /direct/ theme...
The movie has appeal for all ages. It doesn't talk down to its audience. Being an adult myself with no children, simply going for nostalgia's sake, I found the film highly entertaining. It is very much a comedy with a bit of action and romance. The movie focuses on two main characters Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader), our geeky, smart, attention deficit resident mad scientist, and Sam Sparks, would be perky intern and weather reporter from the mainland news organization. You can kind of see where this is going. Mad Scientist creates a machine which makes the sky rain food. Perky weather girl gets her chance to finally become weather woman. Town has food rain down upon it until the machine begins to go haywire and science has to go save the day!
Luckily the movie is way better than the condensed plot. The meat of this movie is actually in its characterization and sub plots involving all the characters of the town. To go into more description would be to spoil a lot of good humor.
Overall this is a movie everybody should attempt to see. As a small end note I went to see it in 3D and while I didn't feel that the 3D was as well used as in Monsters vs Aliens the added effect was nice. There were no real gimmicks added, I felt, that broke immersion like a ping pong ball or an intentional flying at the audience by something random. If nothing go for Neil Patrick Harris's voice cameo. I'll give you a dollar if you can pick it out without using IMDB or the credit.
So obviously I easily identified with the main character. And the romantic subplot amused me greatly. And Oh wow does this movie make me want to have a monkey. Monkeys are awesome! And they fling brown ice cream! Hehe.
There were just so many little scenes that help define the characters that I love about this film. For example the various inventions, all of which in some way end up helping Flint. I loved Flint's laboratory. I loved how he vocalized when he was focusing. There were so many things to find funny with this film that I have a hard time finding something to criticize.