Rated PG for brief mild language
90 Minutes

Written and Directed By: Phil Lord and Chris Miller
Based On The Book By: Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett
Staring: Bill Hader, Anna Farris, James Caan, Mr. T, Andy Samberg, Bruce Campbell, Bobb’e J. Thompson, Benjamin Bratt, Neil Patrick Harris, and Al Roker

Gummi bears! -Steve

Review:

I’m one of the few people that has never read the childrens story “Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs” and because of this I got to walk into the Imax with my awkward and circulation denying glasses with a fresh point of view.  If it doesn’t say Pixar on it, I’m generally pretty skeptical about animated flicks geared towards families, but after seeing Monsters Vs. Aliens last spring I have harbored a little hope.  Meatballs isn’t the best animated movie I’ve ever seen, but it certainly was entertaining.

The story is about a young boy who is an aspiring scientist.  As a child he his heckled for his adoration for science and for being so intelligent.  Unlucky for him Flint not only suffers the teasing of his fellow peers, but most of his experiments end in pretty terrible disasters.  While he is strives for genius in his lab that resides in his fathers back yard, the rest of his town is alienated from his failed attempts.  The island that survives on the sole diet of Sardines is just as repugnant and boring as the idea of a menu consisting of nothing other than the salty fish.  Flint takes it upon himself to create yet another invention that will create a vast menu of foods, thereby making his town happy.  For awhile things go well, but it isn’t long before everything goes terribly wrong as greed and gluttony take over the island.

There was a lot of unexpected humor.  Generally unless I’m watching a Pixar movie childrens movies don’t have a lot to offer in that category for adults, but the laughter seemed to expand from the vertically challenged to the ginormous adults in the crowd, myself included.  There was an element of purity in the humor that made it easy to connect with anyone in the audience.  It was downright silly and added to the general light hearted feel Meatballs exuded.

I was thoroughly impressed by some of the CGI, the giant spagetti torando and the Jello castle were phenomenal, but in other ways the 3D felt pretty pointless and not ultilized fully.  There was definitely large portions of the movie I wouldn’t have minded taking the glasses off for because it didn’t really add anything to be 3D.  The food storm and the end, and the giant metropolis of food with the cruise ships going in were absolutely phenomenal, but I’m still not completely sold on the 3D in general.

The moral tempature of the tale was a bit on the cold end for me.  There were a lot of opportunities to further examen the issues involving greed and gluttony and the results of being that way, but instead it focused more on the stigma of being smart not being cool, which in my experience the image of the “geek” is really just not all that prevalent in these times.  What was once considered a geek is now a much more mainstream crowd that is not only proud of their intellect but snubs those who aren’t on their level.  The idea of Sam putting her scrunchy back in her hair and putting giant awkward glasses on pretty much only furthered the notion that smart people are unattractive or strange looking people rather than embrace the fact that she was both beautiful and smart.  Just because people are attractive doesn’t necessarily make them idiots either.  The stereotyping of these ideals is regressing people rather than evolving past them.

I had a few issues with the flick, but really it offered a ton of great laughs, some ingenuity, mostly some pretty good effects, likable characters, and more importantly the target audience seemed to adore it.  Even with the problems I had with it, they were more symptomatic of the genre itself, and this film did a better job of dealing with some of those faults than a lot of stories like it.  I can’t compare Meatballs to the book, but leaving the theatre my family had a smile on it’s face and we were all hungry for hamburgers!  Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs will more than likely end up on my DVD rack but it isn’t one that is necessary to see in 3D.

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