Tags
Andy Samberg, Animated, Anna Faris, Bill Hader, Bruce Campbell, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Comedy, James Caan, Movie, Mr. T, Romance, Science Fiction
oh psychotic monkey, you're so adorable...
PG
Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Andy Samberg, Bruce Campbell, Mr. T
Flint: We were famous for sardines…until the day the Baby Brent Sardine Cannery closed down for good…right after everyone in the world realized that sardines…are super gross.
An inventor, Flint (Hader), living in an island community sick of eating sardines all the time, creates a machine that turns water into food. Unfortunately, his creation is inadvertently launched up into the sky and remains there, converting clouds into various foods. At first, this is a blessing to the towns people, but as the food starts to mutate, it becomes a burden.
I found this to be a surprisingly entertaining little movie. The story isn’t groundbreaking, and the characters are pretty standard, but I thought it was funny and interesting throughout. There are a lot of quick, clever little jokes and references that really made the movie for me. The animation may not always be stunning, but it’s definitely a movie where you want to scan the background for funny little moments that you may miss otherwise.
It starts a little slow, and the main character, Flint is a little annoying to begin with, but he grew on me after a while. The vocal work is good across the board, with Anna Faris maybe being the highlight for once. Oh, and Mr. T is pretty good too.
I should mention the monkey, Steve, as well. He’s voiced by Neil Patrick Harris, though he doesn’t really say much. But there’s a running joke about Steve and gummy bears that has a great payoff in the end.
As I mentioned, the main drawback is probably the standard characters. Flint’s mom was always supportive when he was a kid, but his dad has never thought much of his inventions. Of course, the mom died and Flint is left to grow up with his non-approving father. There’s also the mayor who is, surprise surprise, the closest thing to a villain in the movie. It’s always the greedy mayor that screws things up, eh?
Sam (Faris) is probably the most interesting character. She’s the wannabe meteorologist who gets sent out to cover a boring non-event because she looks good on camera. She learned early on in life that she needs to hide her intelligence and just coast on her good looks if she wants to avoid being made fun of, but Flint prefers her brainy side.
Overall, despite it not being a particularly magical or inspiring story, the script and clever visuals make up for whatever is lacking in the story and characters. For the most part, at least.
And you get to see a monkey rip the heart out of a gummy bear and eat it…what more do you want from a movie?
Turns out, gluttony can actually be a bad thing…
10 – .7 for some weak characters – .9 for it not being a particularly inspiring/interesting story line – .5 for some of the animation looking a little flat at times = 7.9
The Robot Who Likes Pretty Things 
I liked this one a lot as well. And, while it’s not Pixar-quality animation, it did look better in the theater than on the small screen. Plus, I saw it in 3-D, which I find always helps. I would have gone just a smidge higher than you, but you pretty much nailed it… I’m glad you liked it. The fact that one of the new “At the Movies” guys put this on his worst films of the year list completely blew me away… I think he couldn’t get past the idea of giant food falling from the sky. I don’t know…
i watched their review after posting mine. i was a little puzzled by his dislike of it as well.
my favorite joke? “Even steve is throwing chocolate snowballs! …..ew.”