Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs: Martyn’s Review
Since the rise of the mighty Pixar in the 1990s, computer animation units have popped up at all the major studios. Not a month goes by without a new animated film attempting to grab a child’s attention and empty a parent’s wallet. After all, Hollywood is a business empire with “art” as a by-product.
If one branch of filmmaking has been truly revolutionised; then the abandonment of “traditional animation” in favour of computer-generated, brightly-coloured, celebrity-voiced films, is arguably it.
Sony Pictures Animation – releasing its film at a peculiar time of the year – have come up with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. In 3-D, no less. Directed by first-timers Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, this joyously eccentric movie perhaps puts too much weight behind its use of 3-D in order to attract an audience. Its true appeal lies in the absurdist humour and madcap plot involving a scientist inventing a groundbreaking (and sky-disturbing) machine that mixes disastrously with the weather system resulting in: food raining from the skies. What a concept!
When the “food weather” becomes an instant hit with the town – the mayor (voiced by Bruce Campbell) manipulates geeky scientist Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) – into delivering a plethora of daily menus. As all kinds of crazy food types drop from the heavens, Lockwood and the local weather girl Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) realise it will all end in the cataclysmic destruction of the town.
Much like Pixar’s films, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs sets out to make adults laugh as much as the kids. Another glorious (and unexpected) aspect is the slow invasion of surrealistic landscapes into an already heightened and artificial backdrop.
As freakishly-sized donuts, gummy bears, steaks, ice-cream, pancakes and rashers of bacon pile up and re-shape the town into a new geography, the film could be read as a sly indictment of the human propensity to waste food resources. And name another film that has a sequence involving headless roast chickens attacking the hero and heroine?
This year James Cameron has been sounding off about the future of 3-D cinema. There is still something distancing and uncomfortable about sitting in the dark with a huge pair of sunglasses on. Cinema is all about processing imagery and sound. Add another layers (3-D glasses and new spatial dimensions) and the relationship becomes greater and lesser at the same time. It was a gimmick in the 1950s and it is a gimmick now.
Moments such as the spaghetti tornado sequence is where 3-D triumphs. It is helped, too, by high quality comedy – especially Lockwood’s father Tim (James Caan) and his fishing metaphors (which confuse and exacerbate Flint).
As with all great material, the film works on different levels. At its core, is the story of a man who has spent his life seeking his father’s approval. Kids will love the colourful visuals and the zany character – Steve the Monkey. Adults will enjoy its sardonic humour, satirical swipes and surrealism.
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