Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

For Somalis a provocation, for anorexics a nightmare, for the consumer society a tease and for me, after a long time, finally an animated film that is properly swinging, has an imaginative style (even if technically it lags behind its counterparts) and is brimming with ideas. Basically, and Aardman film, but without Aardman. (24/10/2009)

The movie is quite nice, especially several great ideas pleasantly surprised me about using food for horror scenes. The arrival of chickens is truly pleasantly horrifying, but otherwise, it's a pretty classic film about how one outsider wants to make it, almost messes everything up, but because they have a good heart, they save what they can. (28/06/2016)

It is not exceptional, but it certainly is an above-average animated film about the fact that greed is harmful. In addition to the standard motif of parent-child relationships, about loving each other, respecting each other, and helping each other, it is a film about a consumerist world based on seemingly unrestricted consumption. The film has pace, plenty of crazy jokes, and it's original and supplemented with many references to famous films of the past. An experienced viewer will of course recognize the motif of the Death Star from Star Wars or the camera from the alien war machine from Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Overall impression: 75%. Unfortunately, the film suffers from the typical flaw of American animated blockbusters - its message must be formulated in a way that is understandable to as many people as possible. Some gags are too straightforward and there are so many jokes that the viewer is flooded with them and cannot enjoy them in certain moments... (25/10/2009)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs impresses with its novel premise with food, but it is all wrapped in clichéd filler that that at times overcomes the premise. It's a shame they kept a low profile with the humour – the dad (and his eyebrows) and the monkey (with his fetish for moustaches) were amusing, but I still felt more could have been made of it. The film's action line worked quite well, whether it was a spaghetti tornado, escaping a breached food dam or saving the world, and at times the film evoked an animated version of an Emmerich disaster blockbuster. It's a shame about the wasted potential, though. (08/01/2022)

After a drawn out and very uninteresting opening, the whole narrative flips to a more personal level, where the best moment by far is Flint and Sam bonding and overcoming their childhood traumas together. It's certainly got a novel story and a decent momentum in its second half, but the exposition is so dull and drawn out that it ultimately falls into that sort of broader average among cartoons. [55%] (17/10/2021)