Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s 2009 animation follows Flint, an inventor whose machine turns water into food, goes out of control and rains meals on his town. Flint does not exist in the source. Judi Barrett’s 1978 picture book is a bedtime story a grandfather tells his grandchildren, its protagonist not a person but the town of Chewandswallow. In the book nobody repairs anything; the residents build a raft of stale bread glued with peanut butter and sail away. The film reverses that logic and goes at the problem instead of fleeing it. The script took years. Sony announced the adaptation in 2003 with the Brizzi brothers directing; Lord and Miller wrote for a year and were fired, their replacements were fired too, and the pair came back in 2006. It is their first feature. When studio head Amy Pascal found it funny but short of a relationship to invest in, they promoted a minor tackle shop character into Flint’s father, and that is where the only emotional thread comes from. A good fit if you accept going in that gags run in the background of the frame and ninety minutes will not catch them all. Not for anyone who finds it tiring that the food joke turns into a full disaster movie halfway and never lets up.