Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

I should not have enjoyed this movie nearly as much as I did. The plot is ridiculously silly, the characters are way too over-the-top to the point of annoying, and almost every joke is a simple one-liner. And yet, I dare say I enjoyed it more than Toy Story 3 (which, now that I remember, I never did a review for...*sigh*). No, it doesn't have nearly as much depth in its plot or characterizations, and it might not even be fair to compare the two, but Cloudy provided so much fun and entertainment that it was impossible not to enjoy it.

Set in the podunk town of Swallow Falls, formerly famous for its sardines before people realized they were gross, Cloudy follows the story of mad scientist/inventor Flint Lockwood who fails at just about everything he tries. Despite doing his best to try and impress everyone with his amazing inventions, he has come to be hated by everyone for his spectacular mishaps. However, that's all to change when he invents an incomprehensibly acronymed device (Flint Lockwood's Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator...or FLDSMDFR for short) which can create any kind of food by pouring water into the top of it. While the town is celebrating its reopening as a sardine amusement park, being reported on by up and coming weather intern Sam Sparks, Flint sneaks over to the power plant, hooks his machine up...and it bursts away into the sky with much color and fanfare, looking to be just one more failed invention. That is, until hamburgers start falling from the sky. Flint revels in his discovery, taking requests from townsfolk and sending it via antenna to the FLDSMDFR in the sky which is sucking up the moisture in clouds to make its food. But of course, there's a slight worry as the machine also produces more and more radiation the more food it makes, which causes some unintended side effects that soon have Flint and Sam (and the grown up former child hero of the town clinging desperately to them) scurrying to save not only Swallow Falls...but the world.

It's a pretty silly plot. And the characters themselves are even more silly. The former child hero, forgotten when Flint makes his discovery, is so stupid and voiced so stupidly by Andy Samberg that he just comes across as, well, stupid instead of funny. The cop too, played by Mr. T barely has anything funny to say, he just literally bounces around everywhere acting tough (though I will admit the sequence running away from the tidal wave of food is hilarious). Even the two main characters, Flint and Sam, are more awkwardly funny than anything. The only truly funny character? Steve, the monkey that has a special device on his head that speaks his thoughts. He only ever says one word at a time, but he steals this movie every time he appears.

So where in the world do I even begin to get the impression that I enjoyed it more than Toy Story 3? Because it never took itself seriously. Every single line, every animation, every dumb character pokes fun at themselves so well that you feel like you're laughing with the movie instead of at it. The animators and scriptwriters obviously had so much fun making it that that sense of fun permeates through every fiber of this film. It doesn't really matter that the plot and characterizations are shallow because it's all so entertaining and fast paced you never stop to notice. And most of the jokes along the way may be simple one-liners, but they're hilarious one-liners, and that's what matters.

In short, Cloudy surprised me. It delivered a steady stream of laughs in what really should've been a lackluster title. It's fun, crazy, and one hell of a good time.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs gets a 9/10.