Overused? Maybe, but it would be nice to pretend that we live in a world in which all humor is not carelessly derived from sexual innuendo and vulgar utterances. The slapstick comedy marks a delightfully nostalgic return to the “old ways” of filmmaking. The film’s animators certainly didn’t take full advantage of the liberation from depth that the 3-D animations granted them, but their explorations of this new graphical style are sufficiently ambitious to merit a closer look. Granted, the film’s premise is a bit too extraordinary to appeal to most adults, but audiences of all ages will enjoy the fresh perspective offered by the 3-D graphic design. But before Lockwood’s dream can be brought to fruition, a freak accident results in the small machine’s projection into the stratosphere, where it sucks in the moisture of the clouds and creates catastrophic food-storms that threaten humanity’s very survival. Lockwood dreams of a town in which his fellow man’s subsistence is no longer dependent upon such a disgusting, fishy food, so he makes the abrupt decision to invent a machine that transforms ordinary water into dream cuisine. His story begins long before Chewandswallow met its palatable fortunes, in a time when the town had “no flavor” and survived solely on sardines.

The film seeks to answer the question: How exactly did the town of Chewandswallow become an epicenter of tasty torrents, succulent squalls and delectable downpours?Įnter Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader, “Saturday Night Live”), prospective inventor and (in the eyes of many of his peers) bumbling madman.

All of these events, whether happy or hapless, are detailed in full in Judi Barrett’s children’s book “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.” Published in 1978, the book’s contemporary big-screen adaptation retains many of the printed version’s positive aspects, yet also attempts to present its own politicized notions of America’s society of excess.

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs book