Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 3D

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Photo / Supplied

Rating:

* * *

Verdict:

No competition for this year's Up, but great, light-hearted fun.

As much fun as the title suggests,

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

is loosely based on the children's book by Judi and Ron Barrett. Hissing and roaring right from the start, it is full of high energy, a colourful palette and sharp, witty lines, and promises slapstick comedy as entertaining for the adults as it is for the kids.

The pace and the comedy wane as the film goes on, but thanks to its endearing characters and wacky, madcap story, it's great fun anyway.

Our hero, Flint Lockwood (voiced by

Saturday Night Live

's Bill Haden), lives on a tiny island that can be found on the map hidden under the 'A' in Atlantic Ocean, in a town called Swallow Falls. Once upon a time, Swallow Falls was known for its sardines, but since the rest of the world worked out that sardines are "super-gross", the sardine industry has collapsed, leaving the locals with little food to eat other than left-over sardines.

That's where young Flint comes in. A geeky and accident-prone inventor, Flint comes up with the idea of saving his town, and making his dad proud, by creating a machine that can turn water into food. Called the Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator, it is known as the FLDSMDFR for short.

It's an outlandish idea and one that actually works, but a workplace accident sees the FLDSMDFR propelled up into space, sending a buffet worth of food raining down on Swallow Falls. This is very exciting for the locals, on account of all the sardines they have been eating recently.

A novice TV weather girl, Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), brings world attention to Flint's invention and Shallow Falls, now known as Chewandswallow. While Flint revels in some positive attention for a change, his machine is slowly mutating in space, and

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

suddenly switches from slapstick comedy to disaster film parody.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

doesn't make the most of its 3D technology and its colourful, larger-than-life feel could be interpreted as cheap and cheerful. That pretty much sums it up. There are plenty of messages about being yourself, greed, and the rest, but it is all treated lightly. And that's the most refreshing thing about this animation, its originality and determination to be fun.

Francesca Rudkin

Cast:

Bill Hader, Anna Faris, Mr T

Directors:

Phil Lord and Chris Miller

Running time:

90 mins Rating: G