Belated Movie Reviews: Cloud With a Chance of Meatballs

This review possibly contains spoilers of the plot.  You were warned.

This movie was a treat (sure, pun intended) from start to finish, both visually and from a plot standpoint, complete with enough quirks to separate it from the rest of the summer buffet (umm, yeah, another pun).  If it wasn’t for one, glaring problem, it would have received five stars from me.

Okay, let’s Oreo cookie this thing (gods, I can’t stop).  The movie was incredibly animated.  The visuals alone were stellar, especially from a technical standpoint of animating the various physics of different food consistencies and textures.  The characters, however, bounce between reacting to the environment in a quasi-realistic way all the way to tried and true cartoon favorites of shoveling food into their mouths as if they were reptiles with unhinged jaws.  This more or less works fine, once you get used to the universe the film makers have created, though it’s a bit jarring when the first foods begin to fall.

The plot centers around a budding mad scientist and his quest for glory, greatness, yet tinged with some major daddy issues.  The main character invents a machine which is accidentally launched into the atmosphere, where it takes up geostationary orbit in the clouds (yeah, cartoon physics again).  The machine’s purpose is to convert water into whatever food one desires, from fully formed cheeseburger to perfectly cooked steaks, and even ice cream programmed to fall in perfect scoops.

The usual hijinks ensure, especially with the conveniently built-in ticking timebomb scenario of how the machine can become overworked and thus produce “over mutated” foods (as in gargantuan, heavy, and falling from the sky at presumably terminal velocity).  This isn’t the problem of the film, however.

Granted, I acknowledge it’s a work of fiction, intended to entertain both young and old.  Along with that are the usual liberties taken with reality and physics in order to move the story along, no matter how outlandish or absurd.  Yet, the one thing which bothered me, apart from all of that, was that at no time, did any character ever mention the invention as a possible aid to world hunger.

Yes, yes, yes, it’s possibly a very picky point on my part, to the degree of being overly sensitive to moral and social issues, yet it’s nonetheless very glaring that no one even tossed the idea out there.  There were plots to make the machine put the failing and formerly sardine-industry based town back on the map, and even sub-plots involving a mayor with an obvious eating disorder, gluttonous town folk, and all undercut by the main character’s need for his dad’s pat on the head.  Yet, the only nod to the third world was in the surprising, if heavy-handed character introduction of Stan, the cameraman from Guatemala who also happens to be a doctor, stunt pilot, and comedian, apparently living in the US in order to “have a better life”.

In fact, one of the movie’s ultimate antagonists winds up being a pile of gigantic leftovers which breaks the damn they were carefully hidden behind, threatening the townsfolk.

This may in itself be the message the film makers were trying to send in portraying the characters as not giving a second thought to those who could benefit the most while cheerfully tossing away leftovers with the none too subtle “if it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind” throwaway line.  Yet, it’s subtlety likely lost on people sitting in a theater who just paid $10 for a popcorn and soda worthy only about $3 at a grocery store.

Still, the movie’s acting was top notch, with the father character (voiced by James Caan) one of my favorites.  His reunion and confession of love for his son was as poignant was it was humorously introduced.  No doubt there are already sequel talks in the works or some kind of series.  The movies themes may be too out reach for younger kids, but with no overt violence (though there is plenty implied to watchful adults) and lots of gorgeous colors, animation, and action, the young ones will be riveted.

Cloud With a Chance of Meatballs:   ★★★★☆