Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

This weekend I managed to get two friends to accompany me to a matinee showing of Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. There were a couple of reason why I wanted to see this movie. The cast that was involved in the film wouldn't want their names attached to something with a bad script (Bill Hader, Andy Samburg, Neil Patrick Harris), the trailer looked promising, it was in 3-D, and the idea of food falling from the sky is a dream everyone has at some point in their life.

While it took a bit of convincing my friends paid for their tickets and we sat down in a theater full of children and parents. For a 2:25 showing it had a decent crowd, which was a sign that this film would make about $30 million for its opening weekend. The opening scenes of the film gave a strong enough background to let everyone know who our main character, Flint Lockwood, was; an aspiring inventor. It also let us know about the town in which he lived and its current food problem. In an attempt to finally invent something everyone can appreciate Flint makes a machine that converts water into food. Not everything goes to plan for Flint, but the machine works as it gathers water from the clouds above and lets the food rain down from high. Naturally this is not natural and problems must arise from clouds shooting food out.

While the story is simple, and based on a children's book of the same name (which it gives plenty of nods too), it is also very original in its own sense. The writing is great and contains plenty of laughs for all ages. I also laughed a few times because of what parts some of the kids in the theater were laughing at. Flint's lab partner Steve steals every scene in which he talks (he is monkey) and is the center of a running joke that is not overused and climaxes at my favorite part of the film.

After the movie ended both my friends admitted they laughed more than they thought they would and enjoyed the movie. One of them even continued to quote the film for the rest of the afternoon. I might go see this movie again, or at least grab some of my cousins and take them just because it was that enjoyable of a movie. With a PG rating and a run time of only 90min, it is film I recommend everyone check out.

Honestly, for the movie genre and production budget, I got more than I thought I would out of this movie and give it 3 1/2 stars out of 4.