Cloudy with a chance of meatballs 3d (u)

Sep 16 2009 Uxbridge Gazette

A charming animation that will leave your tummy grumbling and aching for more,writes KATE SOLOMON

OUR leading man is Flint Lockwood, who has always had trouble fitting in. Bullied at school for being too smart and inventing all kinds of tat - from irremovable spray-on shoes to a monkey-thought interpreting machine - he retreats into his lab, inventing gizmos that never work in quite the way he intended.

His home town of Chewandswallow was once a thriving fishing town, famed for its sardine cannery. But when the cannery closed down, the town's residents were left feeling redundant, with nothing but a surplus of canned sardines to eat.

But all that is about to change - Flint's latest invention is a device to solve mealtime problems by turning water into food; and by gum, it really works! When a freak accident sees the device shot into the clouds, it starts raining food on Chewandswallow. Luckily, beautiful weather-girl-intern Sam Sparks is on hand to broadcast the phenomenon to the world, and help out when it all goes pear-shaped.

This canny animation may be based on a book written in the 1970s but it is full of signs for our times. Townspeople suffer the consequences of gorging themselves on the bountiful snacks, while discipline-free parenting leads to trouble. The generation gap between Flint and his father is another theme; one speaks in outdated fishing metaphors and the other in futuristic digital jargon - and neither understands what the other is trying to say.

Current children's films emphasise that it's cool to be clever, so Flint becomes an unlikely hero as he both risks and saves the day with his technological gadgetry. Sam Sparks hides her intelligence behind a snazzy haircut and a refusal to wear glasses, but her inner weather-geek comes out in the end and plays a big part in saving the day.

Making a feature length film of a much-revered children's book is always a risky move. Fans of the book will understandably be concerned at the sheer volume of new material required to make the short story into a feature-length film. But rest assured, although the narrative has been padded out, it has been done well and maintains the tone and feel of the original.

And it's that tone that makes the film work. By addressing the crazy events with a serious attitude, the makers have given the film a tongue-in-cheek feel that works brilliantly, and the comic timing is spot on. A true family film, the slapstick comedy, wacky storyline and excellent 3D animation will keep the kids happy, while the rest of the family enjoy the real laugh-out-loud moments.