Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs



When Flint Lockwood's latest contraption accidentally destroys the town square and rockets up into the clouds, he thinks his inventing career is over.  Then, something amazing happens as delicious cheesburgers start raining from the sky.  His machine actually works.  But when people greedily ask for more and more food, the machine starts to run amok, unleashing spaghettie tornadoes and giant meatballs that threaten the world!  Now it's up to Flint, with the help of weather girl Sam Sparks and Steve, his talking monkey assistant, to find some way to shut down the machine before the world is covered in super-sized meatballs!

Starring the voice talents of:  Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Andy Samberg, Bruce Campbell, Mr. T., Bobb'e J Thompson, Benjamin Bratt, Neil Patrick Harris, Al Roker, Lauren Graham for full list see http://www.imdb.com/

Rating:  G

I thought this movie looked like fun.  Unfortunately I personally did not get to watch with my children.  Insteand my husband and I had previewed the film the night before.  Maybe that's why we weren't all that thrilled with it, maybe we just weren't in the right mood for it. 

Sure the premise is fun and the animation as usual is very well done.  It's just that the story left us feeling that it was an odd film.  It was ... okay.  An underlying theme through this movie is the difficult relationship that Flint has with his dad.  Flint and his dad are two completely different people and as often happens conflict arises.  A second theme through this film is the one where success initially goes to Flint's head and he turns his back briefly on what he should be doing.  In the end he gets everyone out of the jam but if he had made different choices in the first place, none of it would have happened.  A hard lesson.

The next day my husband let the kids watch it and sure enough, they all thought it was great.  This is definitely one of those movies that kids enjoy more than the grownups.  It was just silly enough to engage their interest.

As for content, it was full of the usual cartoon violence.  No one gets hurt and it's mostly for comedic affect. For language there was one each of damn, hellhole and crap.  As for frightening and intense scenes, several roasted chickens in the end come alive and starts attacking the main characters, with the last 35 minutes of the film being the most intense as the main characters are attempting to shut down the machine and the people in the town are trying to avoid being crushed by the large piles of food. 

This movie is probably recommended for seriously younger viewers but from say 4 and up I think this film is just fine.