Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs

At the beginning of the weekend I told myself I was going to see FOUR Movies. Well, its Sunday night and I only saw one. Neglecting JENNIFER'S BODY, THE INFORMANT!, and LOVE HAPPENS, I went to see CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS. Now I am a huge fan of the children's book and the movie takes some liberties with the material. Meaning, the only aspect of the book that is duplicated in the movie is that food falls from the sky. Nevertheless, I still LOVED THE MOVIE!

I ate dinner before going because I knew the movie would make me wanna leave the theater right away and hit up an Applebees, Burger King or even a 7-Eleven for a gas station taquito. It sure does make you hungry.

I loved everything about the movie. The film tells a story of Inventor-wannabe Flint Lockwood. Flint along with his Dad and pet Monkey live in a city falling on hard times. The town's sole source of food is Sardines. So obviously, Flint embarks on a way to turn water molecules into food. An experiment gone awry ends in the sky raining food, which Flint controls from his uber-dork "Tree fort" (All of Flint's invention go awry FYI).

Like most animated comedies these days, there is something for everyone. You have the kid friendly fart jokes/slap stick jokes. However, as a 24 year old, I was thoroughly entertained by the subtle adult positioned comedy. I surprisingly had a good laugh at young-Flint's childhood bedroom, decked out in SCIENTIST posters (substitute LeBron James dunking for Einstein scientisting/equationizing).

Story wise- very entertaining. Flint's nerdiness finds a love interest in Sam, a up-and-coming meteorologist who reaches star-status (along with Flint) as the new Weather-girl reporting on all of Flint's antics. Flint also becomes the interest in the town's mayor (villian). The mayer sees the "weather pattern" as a way to attract tourists and make money. Like any story, there needs to be a conflict. So duh, the machine goes hay-wire and severe food weather terrorizes the town. Against the wishes of the town's mayor, Flint, Sam and pals embark to shut down the machine (which is trapped somewhere in the clouds above the town). No spoilers- but its a kids film; the ending wasn't an ARLINGTON ROAD-esque close.

Visually, the movie was amazing. I believe this film stands up to Pixar's calibre of animation. Not to mention, I saw it in 3D. I am a huge fan of 3D. It's the "3rd heat" of movies. Only "30 Rock" fans will understand that analogy. The movie actually got me super amped for TOY STORY 3 in 3D. The movie pops off the screen. Only once or twice did I have to duck out of the way from being hit by flying meatballs.

Overall, it definitely was worth the money. A solid 90 minutes of mind-numbing entertainment. Just make sure you see it with a tub of p-corn and sour patch kids!