Step 1: Order up a heaping pile of Meatballs right away. Cloudy with a Chance is a thoroughly delightful and hilarious 3-D animated comedy that’ll definitely get you craving giant pancakes, gummi bears – and yes, said meat.
Step 2: Set that bar pretty darn high. With the Pixars of the world dominating the competitive animated field, you really have to step up your game if you want to succeed. Luckily for Sony Animation, they accepted that challenge, combining all the right ingredients in Meatballs – a good story, copious amounts of hilarity for kids and adults alike and awesome visuals.
Step 3: Cross it between Dexter’s Laboratory and the Food Network. The story, inspired by the beloved children’s book, centers on one Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader), a wannabe inventor who is constantly trying to improve everyone’s lives with his inventions, such as a Monkey Thought Translator or Spray-On Shoes. Except he never quite succeeds, thus making him the joke of his small seaside town. Things turn sour for the town, however, when their one and only export – sardines – is no longer in demand, forcing the denizens to eat the surplus of the little stinky fish day in and day out. Flint decides he’ll invent a machine, the FLDSMDFR, that can turn water into delicious food, but of course, it’s unveiling goes awry and the machine is accidentally catapulted into the stratosphere. Then, to the amazement of all, the FLDSMDFR starts to work, turning the atmospheric precipitation into falling cheeseburgers. Flint soon figures out how to manipulate the device remotely so he can program any and all kinds of food to be dropped from the sky. That’s when the town gets greedy … and the FLDSMDFR goes rogue.
Step 4: Add some great vocal talent. With something as hysterical as Meatballs, you need funny people to deliver the lines appropriately: Hader is perfect as the nerdy Flint, socially awkward but trying his best; Anna Faris voices Sam Sparks, a perky weathergirl sent to the scene by her network but who harbors some deep-seeded geekiness herself, thus endearing her to Flint immediately; James Caan is Flint’s technophobic dad, a burly, kindly fellow who is all eyebrows and mustache; Bruce Campbell plays the bombastic town mayor and main instigator of the food frenzy; and the best of all, Neil Patrick Harris as Flint’s pet monkey, Steve, who (with the Monkey Thought Tran attached) blurts out monosyllabic thoughts like his name “Steve!” and his favorite food “Gummi Bears!”
Step 5: Get the CGI right. In my opinion, the whole 3-D thing has gotten way out of control when it comes to animated movies, but I reluctantly have to admit it looks pretty darn cool in Meatballs. I think my favorite part is the giant yellow jello mold/castle, complete with a jello grand piano and jello chandelier, in which Flint and Sam frolic, bounce and eat. I want one. In lime jello, please.
Level of difficulty in watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: Easy as eating cherry pie falling from the sky.