When Flint Lockwood's latest contraption accidentally destroys the town square and rockets up into the clouds, he thinks his inventing career is over. Then, something amazing happens as delicious cheeseburgers start raining from the sky. His machine actually works. But when people greedily ask for more and more food, the machine starts to run amok, unleashing spaghetti tornadoes and giant meatballs that threaten the world! Now it's up to Flint with the help of weather girl Sam Sparks and Steve, his talking monkey assistant, to find some way to shut down the machine before the world is covered in super-sized meatballs...

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is a computer animated movie from Sony Pictures Animation. The story is based loosely on the book written by Judi Barrett and illustrated by Ron Barrett.

The movie follows Flint Lockwood, who is a young man who has always dreamed of inventing something that would bring him fame and change mankind. His first invention was spray on shoes - not a great success as there was no way to remove them once they'd been applied. Other failed inventions included the remote control television, hair-unbalder, flying far, and ratbirds (which look more like par-rats).

Flint lives in the sleepy town of Swallow Falls, a town that was once great due to the fact that it was the largest exporter of sardines. But when everyone on the planet suddenly realised that sardines are disgusting, Swallow Falls sinks into a depression with no other industry to fall back on. Flint's father wants Flint to help out with the family Bait N’ Tackle shop, but Flint is sure that one day he will invent something useful.

One day he finally creates a machine that will create food from water. But an accident sends the contraption up into the clouds - at which point it starts to rain cheeseburgers. Flint designs a computer that allows him to change the food settings and soon everyday it's raining a different type of food... but how long before everything goes pear-shaped?

The humour in this movie works on a number of layers - there are a couple of gags that will only be appreciate the adults in the audience, but the majority of the jokes will work for everyone.

The central characters are likeable and the vocal talents are spot on. I loved James Caan's delivery for Flint's father, and Mr T also makes an impressive appearance as the local cop.

Extras include Splat Mode (Watch the movie and use your remote control to throw different food items at the screen - which then splat. The more items you throw the messier your screen gets); Flint's Food Fight Game (Use your remote control to destroy food in a Space Invader's style game); Audio Commentary with writers/directors Christopher Miller, Phil Lord and actor Bill Hader; A Recipe For Success: The Making of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (10 min, 51 sec); Key ingredients: The Voices of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (12 min, 39 sec - which lets you see the main vocal actors in the studio); Extended Scenes (2 min, 36 sec); Early Development Scenes (5 min, 47 sec of rough scenes); Progression Reels with introduction by visual FX supervisor Rob Bredlow (8 min, 9 sec look at how the lighting was layered in order to make it appear real); Miranda Cosgrove's Raining Sunshine Video (3 min, 45 sec with optional sing-a-long version); Behind the Scenes of the Music Video (2 min, 17 sec look at the making of the Raining Sunshine video); and trailers for other releases.

This Blu-ray release is interesting as it also comes with a DVD version of the movie - so those thinking of upgrading to a Blu-ray player can buy this movie and watch the DVD until they pick up a new player.

An entertaining, funny and touching movie that all the family will enjoy.

9

Darren Rea