“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” is a children’s comedy about a little boy named Flint Lockwood who has always wanted to be an inventor to improve people’s lives, but whose inventions were always impractical and failed.
One day, he accidentally shoots his latest invention, a machine that turns water into food, into the sky, while at the same time wrecking everything in town in the process. It seems to be another failure and Flint decides he is done inventing for good, but his invention actually works! Hamburgers start falling out of the sky!
With the help of Sam Sparks, a weather girl covering the raining food story, Flint turns into a huge celebrity. It doesn’t take long before Flint is taking food orders from everyone in town, including the bulging mayor.
The best food Flint sends down to the town was ice cream sundaes covering the entire island. The kids were thrilled! Flint also makes Sam Sparks a giant jello castle, because they both love jello. But soon after, the machine becomes overwhelmed and threatens the whole world’s destruction.
Throughout the movie Flint is portrayed as a big kid who has big dreams. He goes from the loser of a smelly sardine island, being bullied all the time, to being the hero of the largest tourist attraction and most-watched town on earth, cutting the ribbon on the newest city project in front of hundreds of clapping people.
One of the most interesting parts of the movie is when Sam Sparks tells Flint about the real her – with glasses, a ponytail and a huge interest in weather. Instead of laughing at her or telling her she is weird, Flint empowers her to be herself and show the world how smart she is, instead of trying to be what others want her to be.
Besides the out of control food-making machine, one of Flint’s biggest problems is he can’t ever seem to impress his father, who is an old fisherman and not very fond of technology, and who thinks the whole raining food idea is a disaster waiting to happen even though everyone else loves it. Flint becomes very frustrated that his invention finally works and makes all the people in town respect him, yet he still can’t impress his own father.
This movie was very cute and hilarious. It truly makes you laugh out loud all the way through. It had clever humor and I thought the graphics by Sony were really amazing and realistic, except for the intentionally cartoonish-looking characters that stood out very comically. The voices were very well done and the characters were well developed.
“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” is a very cute movie, which I think would be great for all younger kids and is a perfect family movie. Just make sure you get plenty of snacks for it, because this movie really makes you hungry!
Aran Kirschenmann, 13, is a contributing writer for the Bellevue Reporter and a eighth grader at The International School in Bellevue.
