‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs’ Review: The Masterpiece You Overlooked

Hi, Sam Sparks, I’m America, and I am here to defend one of my favorite films of all time. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs may appear to be, on the surface, an innocent kid’s film about an unhinged scientist and magic food falling from the sky, but GOD DAMNIT, it is so much more than that.

Upon its release in 2009, it was met with a somewhat mixed reception from the Serious Film Reviewers crowd. One Guardian reviewer described it as “a mix between the bland and bizarre.”

Respectfully, I disagree with that sentiment. And it’s not just the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia that’s making me say this, despite what the science says.

It’s a ninety-minute masterpiece that asks the age-old question – when you fail, are you going to learn from it? Or are you going to cry like a whiny little bitch?

Hell. Why not do both?

Flint Lockwood and His Philosophy of Failure

From the opening of the film, the audience is immediately aware that Flint Lockwood is a man used to failure. He is the very antithesis of the “strong, capable scientist” archetype that permeates modern media, as much as he may detest this fact. One of his earliest inventions, the infamous ‘Spray on Shoes,’ causes people to send him spiraling when they laugh him out of his science classroom.

He’s very much a stroppy teenager, in one sense. He’s desperate for his father’s approval. He will do anything to have one single person like him. The minute things don’t go his way, he falls into self-loathing, throwing himself in the trash and labeling himself as ‘junk.’

Flint fails over and over and over again. He cannot get any of his inventions right. He cannot say the right thing to the girl of his dreams. He cannot get over his father’s disappointment of him. He cannot save the world when it matters most, in the end.

…Except he can. He cannot escape the haze of his self-doubt, and yet he does it anyway. He does it with the help of his first failed invention. He not only learns from his mistakes but uses them to save the goddamn world. That’s cool as shit.

The lab coat that is given to him by his deceased mother (because, yes, of course, he suffers from main character dead parent syndrome. Come on now.) is the physical manifestation of said philosophy. When his dad presents it to him, it is proof of everything that he once believed he was capable of.

So yes! You can cry and throw a tantrum when everything goes wrong! As long as you pick yourself up afterward. Because, when it rains, you put on a damn coat. And that’s the overarching philosophy that makes this film so special. It’s not the message that’s unique but the way in which it is presented.

The Supporting Cast

Among the supporting cast of characters is one of the greatest fictional men of all time. Officer Earl Devereaux is a man that everyone should look up to. I love him. So much.

Beyond being voiced by the ineffable Terry Crews (okay, fair enough, only in the second one. But it still counts!), his comedic timing is perfect. His love for his comically tiny son, juxtaposed with his distaste for Flint, is great. It’s a classic enemy to friends (not lovers, hold tight AO3 users…) that feels organic and fresh, particularly for the admittedly low standards that are usually present for Sony films.

Alongside Earl is a whole host of characters that add warmth, depth and endless amounts of humour. From Steve the talking monkey to the comically oversized mayor, not a single comedic beat is missed. I am unashamed to admit that I laughed out loud at many moments during my recent rewatch – a whole 15 years after the film originally came out.

And, of course, we cannot forget the still highly relevant warning against climate change. Yes, we might never have burgers fall from the sky (unfortunately), but the whole “don’t fuck around with things that you can’t undo” message is still pretty solid. The grotesquely capitalist mayor, with his relentless assurance that things will end up being fine as long as the masses continue to pour money into his town, will forever remain deliciously relevant.

And the relationship between Flint and his dad makes me tear up every single time. In between all his moments of glory, of making the town proud and the mayor even fatter, every interaction with his dad highlights him as the same scared kid that we saw in the film’s opening. The scene at the end, when he finally admits how proud he is, is perfect because Flint so deserves it. Through his journey of growth and eventual self-sacrifice, the audience can cheer with him when he finally gets everything he wants. Not many protagonists deserve everything that comes to them, but he’s a part of the very rare few that do.

Animation

The animation is sweeping and beautiful. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to themselves. From the infamous orange Jello castle to the ice cream snowstorm and the beautiful rainbow of clouds that encompass the town, everything is pure eye candy.

And when our protagonist’s ascent into the sky to fight the FLDSMDFR, the beauty of the film mixes perfectly with the comedy. Pizza that turns into sharp weapons, roast chickens that fight humans,

The character design is another ingenious element of this film.

Flint’s father’s character design is, and I hate to sound like a broken record here, straight up genius. Instantly recognisable, and his face his hidden away just like his emotions. I bloody love a metaphor.

And can we talk about the way Sam Sparks’ character completely subverts the ‘nerdy girl gets contact lenses and lets her hair down and is suddenly beautiful’ stereotype? I’m not going so far as to call this film a third-wave feminist masterpiece, but its relatively simple message here is a powerful empowerment of young girls. Sam’s character arc revolves around her embracing her nerdiness, and it’s such a genuinely lovely thing to see in a kid’s film that you have to give it credit, even if she is built like a Pixar mom. One thing at a time. We can’t have everything.

Final Thoughts

You may remember Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs as that weird food film you watched as a child. But it’s so, so much more than that.

It is the epitome of creative power that is so lacking in the animation field today. Yes, of course, there are exceptions to this broad statement, but when all we see is an uninspiring sequel churned out after an uninspiring sequel, it’s a shiny reminder of what we once had. It’s symbolic of a golden era of animated film, and the fact that it’s a children’s film does not take away from its beauty. Relevant, jaw-dropping, and powerful, I will watch it again and again and again, and I suggest everyone else does the same.