CALM DOWN. No one’s raping your childhood.
In fact, the creative team behind the new movie Cloudy with a
Chance of Meatballs has the utmost respect for the children’s book
you loved as a kid. You’ll find nods to the original in their
beautiful, imaginative adaptation, even as the source material is
transformed into something wholly unexpected and new.
Writers/directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller have imagined a
backstory to the book that explains why, exactly, hamburgers and
pancakes rain from the sky above the town of Chewandswallow: A young
inventor, Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader), develops a machine
that transforms water into food. What in the book was a mystery here
becomes a subtle parable for the dangers of over-consumption—one with a gorgeous visual style that borrows from ’80s Atari games and
Skittles commercials.
Cloudy defies the rule that when it comes to kids’ movies,
funny actors do not guarantee funny movies: Bruce Campbell, Bill Hader,
Andy Samberg, Anna Faris, Neil Patrick Harris, Mr. T, and more lend
their voices here, and they’re just as funny as you want them to be.
The movie’s sophisticated, fast-paced humor owes more to The Muppet
Show and Arrested Development than to most of its CG
contemporaries, and the whole thing’s so offbeat and original that it
makes even Pixar look conventional. So don’t worry, dear: Your
childhood remains intact.