by Thom L. Benson
posted November 4, 2009
) Photo by Courtesy of Sony Pictures Animation Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) and Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) watch in amazement while it rains hamburgers in Sony Pictures Animation's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. |
Adapted from the bestselling children's book, Sony Pictures Animation’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs focuses on a town where food falls from the sky like rain.
Bill Hader, star of “Saturday Night Live,” is the voice of aspiring inventor Flint Lockwood, the socially awkward genius behind some of the most bizarre contraptions ever conceived.
But even though all of his inventions, from spray-on shoes to a monkey thought translator, have been spectacular failures that caused trouble in his small town, Flint is determined to create something that will make people happy. When Flint’s latest machine, designed to turn water into food, accidentally destroys the town square and rockets up into the clouds, he thinks his inventing career is over.
Until something amazing happens -- cheeseburgers start raining from the sky. His machine actually works! The food weather is an instant success, and Flint forges a fast friendship with Sam Sparks, the weathergirl who comes to town to cover what she calls “the greatest weather phenomenon in history.”
But when people greedily ask for more and more food, the machine starts behaving erratically, unleashing spaghetti tornadoes and giant meatballs. With the town about to be buried beneath mountains of marshmallows and waves of watermelons, it’s up to Flint and Sam to use their combined expertise to shut down the machine and put everything right.
Sony Pictures Animation’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs began life in 1978 as a children’s book written by Judi Barrett and illustrated by Ron Barrett, which now has over a million copies in print.
With its charming, visually inventive style, absurdist sense of humor, and fantastic premise – a town where food falls from the sky – it seemed a foregone conclusion that the book would be adapted into an animated movie.
But no one was quite able to do it until writer-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller came along and found inspiration from a seemingly obvious source – the book itself.
“We thought, wow, that would be a great action movie,” said Mr. Lord. “All of the events in the film would be very, very silly, but the characters would take them all very, very seriously.”
And you’d take it seriously, too, if a giant spaghetti tornado threatened your town, as it does to Swallow Falls. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs represents the ultimate in food fun and mayhem.
A flood of critical reviews show a tidal wave of support for this film. Variety’s Peter Debruge said, “Eye-popping and mouth-watering in one, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs spins a 30-page children's book into a 90-minute all-you-can-laugh buffet..." And USA Today’s Claudia Puig said, “...the forecast for Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is: appealing family fare worth relishing.”
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