Year: 2009
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Rated: PG
SRP: $ 39.95
Studio(s): Sony Pictures
Release Date: January 5, 2010

Film/Feature: A-

Even though a lot of emphasis has been put on Pixar’s Up, one of this past year’s most memorable animated features was Sony’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Kids, parents and those on Weight Watchers have their dreams realized when Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) invents a contraption that is designed to save the town of Swallow Falls, a city where it’s ’round the clock, nonstop sardines. The machine is called the FLDSMDFR (an acronym too long to list out) that turns water into food and sends it into the sky where it can rain down whatever the starving desires, bringing new life and public interest to Sallow Falls. Flint gains newfound fame and credit for making life worth living in Swallow Falls. Flint was picked on as a kid for his scientific breakthroughs but for the first time, something he created brought happiness to the world.

If not for the sudden scientific and culinary phenomena, barely anyone would know about this fishing town located under the “A” in Atlantic Ocean on the world map. A weather girl named Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) catches the bizarre and delectable events on camera and the Mayor Shelbourne (Bruce Campbell) thinks he can exploit this in a facelift of the town and drive world tourism to his front door. Greed and gluttony wreak havoc on the city as the FLDSMDFR is put under a great deal of stress and misuse and it’s up to Flint to save the day, and repair his estranged relationship with his father (James Caan). Enlisting the help of Sam and her Guatemalan cameraman Manny (Benjamin Bratt), Flint and his pet monkey Steve (Neil Patrick Harris) who can talk through a Flint-modified Speak and Spell, this motley crew tries to fix the unstable FLDSMDFR, which threatens to destroy and bury the world in tons of food.

Cloudy had two solid nondescript performances by leads, Hader and Faris, but Campbell and Mr. T deliver two performances that remind the audience that this is a film where you can have fun. Campbell is just creepy as the mayor and the more gluttonous he gets, the more frightening he becomes but you can imagine him relishing in the villainy motives. Mr. T on the other hand is a scene stealer and really is the heart of the film, playing Officer Earl Deveraux as the over-the-top, authoritative figure balanced with his devotion to his “keyd” tugs at the heartstrings.

This is the second children’s’ book to be expanded successfully into a feature-length film. Spike Jonze’s “live” + CG-animated adaptation of Where the Wild Things had a much darker and grim abstraction that takes time to digest and ponder, where Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs took the opposite approach and aimed straight for the all-ages group and this film will score a hit with that audience. Seeing all of that food bury and destroy the city captures the imagination with memorable visuals and top-notch animation. Cloudy’s funny, it’s intelligent and is a timeless story especially for those whose eyes are bigger than their tummies.

Video: A
This is one of the most satisfying visual experiences of the year. Cloudy has a high definition, 1080p AVC-encoded transfer in the original 2.39:1 aspect ratio on blu-ray. The colors will parade and dance on your display and need not pull to hard on the corners of your smile because it’s awesome. The city of Swallow Falls has this muted color palette but when the food falls from the sky—wow! I want to draw attention to two scenes of note which caused my eyes to lock open: when the the sky was raining with ice cream and when Flint and Samantha went into the orange Jello palace. One of the most impressive visual effects though is the storm clouds which roll and plunder in the sky with this billowing purple, pinks, and yellow and anyone with a proper display will see that this has as much visual pop to it that Pixar films have. Also, give credit to the animators for putting in the detail on the food, like lighting, reflection, and proper texture to makes it look appetizing, and mouth watering. I do think that in the lower lit scenes (in the meatball) there could have been more light to show some of the detail (and there’s lots of it) gets lost, but overall blacks are stable and deep, shadows are clearly defined. The set of Swallow Falls is one of the largest mapped environments in an animated film and the hard work is showcased in this transfer.

Audio: A+
You cannot knock this film for being technically deficient. The audio is heard through a lovely 5.1 English DTS-HD Master Audio track with a beefy and robust showing in the lower range of sound. Rear channels are continually being sent plenty of active sound effects to give a pleasurable and memorable audio experience. The storms are the high point as the food that comes flying down to the ground all of the surround channels get active and help recreate those scenes in your screening room. It all culminates to the climax where the spaghetti tornado is hurtling objects all around, you’ll see why this is reference material audio. The music has a triumphant, overachieving feel to it that pulls the emotions at just the right moments and climbs up from behind. Other audio selections include: 5.1 DTS-HD French, 5.1 Spanish tracks and subtitles are available in English, English SDH, French, Spanish, with English and Spanish subtitles for the commentary.

Extras: B+
Audio Commentary by Writers/Directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord and Actor Bill Hader is a fun, light-hearted chatty commentary track that easily accessible, full of stories about the pre/post production and animation, and facts pointed out during specific scenes and moves along at a brisk pace. It won’t go down as an all-time must listen track, but it goes along with the enjoyable spirit of the film its filmmakers.

A Recipe for Success: The Making of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs HD (10:51) is your classic EPK that discusses how the project started as a children’s book written by Judi Barrett and illustrated by Ron Barrett.

Key Ingredients: The Voices HD (12:39) Each principal cast member is interviewed on how they were drawn to the project and their experience voice acting. Hader, Faris, Caan, Campbell, Samberg and Mr. T are gathered to shed some light on their characters. You get the sense that each member genuinely had a good time working on this film.

Extended Scenes HD Elevator Joke (0:38) and Early Cut with Awesome Food Fight (1:59) are two scenes that are referenced in the commentary and can be seen. They aren’t look but even in animated films, sometimes even more so, edits are quite hard to do given how much work is put into them.

Early Development Scenes HD (5:47) Two scenes can be seen in their early storyboard / animatic stage. Flint’s Letter to Super Scientist Vanca LeFleur and the Twister action sequence.

Progression Reels with Introductions by Visual FX Supervisor Rob Bredow HD (9:08) is a tour of the some of the visual effects challenges presented to Sony Imageworks’ animators such as the color palette, making food look delicious to the viewer, and making a tornado out of spaghetti. This to me, was the most interesting and enjoyable extras on the disc.

Miranda Cosgrove’s Raining “Sunshine” SD (3:45) is a music video of the movie’s song which viewers are able to sing-a-long with it.

Make it Rain Food HD (0:32) is an brief PSA.

Flint’s Food Fight Game is a hybrid of Space Invaders and Asteroids in a Cloudy theme. It’s not sophisticated by any stretch and the only person playing it after five cycles is just stubborn.

Splat Vision The producers of this blu-ray really understand their audience because this is a fun way to watch the film again. You can fling food with cross hairs during any part of the film. Is your screen covered in goop? Then just take the squeegee to wipe the screen clean and do it all over again. Again, there’s not a lot of levels to this feature but it’s fun, and I can see a family having a scream over this.

The second disc is a DVD+Digital Copy Disc combination which is great for those long travel trips or if you just want to sneak it in on your wok computer during lunchtime. While it is in standard definition, you have admire what many of these studios are doing in ensuring families need to only buy one version of the films so that they can enjoy it in every way possible.

Trailers for Planet 51, The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, Monster House, Surf’s Up, Open Season, Open Season 2, Hachi: A Dog’s Take.

Overall Shock Value: A
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is another example of how much room is still left to make a great, animated films despite the market being dominated by the two big animation houses. This film looks and sounds unreal, and I urge you not to see the film on an empty stomach because the food looks that good, and the story will make your belly hurt even more from having a good time. Something tells me that this will get a re-release once 3D capable televisions become more common, since this was initially released in that form. Until then, this is a great release and whether you’ve got kids, or your just a big kid at heart, this Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs blu-ray+DVD combo gets one easy Buy It recommendation.