I don’t know if anyone was exactly hungering for a film version of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, but this one from directors Chris Miller (Shrek the Third) and Phil Lord is a well-rendered and fairly entertaining CGI effort that might literally make you hungry.

Based on the slim but beloved children’s book by Judi and Ron Barrett, it tells the story of an inventor named Flint (Bill Hader) who concocts a machine that can turn water into food, and who then must endure the chaotic and mouth-watering consequences of accidentally launching it into the atmosphere.

Visually, the film is a treat. Cheeseburgers and doughnuts fall from the sky, a spaghetti-and-meatball twister wreaks havoc, and characters bounce around in giant Jell-O molds. Kids will love it. There’s also a montage early on of Flint at different ages inventing things that go hilariously awry, and at one point characters give big-moment speeches while gigantic food rains down behind them.

There are plenty of smaller but equally humorous moments, too, most of them thanks to Flint’s pet monkey, an animal who’s fascinated by moustaches, utters one-word thoughts (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris) via an animal-to-English device รก la Up, and takes on a pack of life-size Gummi Bears. The scene where Flint tries to look his dad in the eye also made me laugh.

Aside from a few SNL alums, including Hader and Andy Samberg, we get funny voice work from Anna Faris (Scary Movies 1-4) as a TV reporter, the always-welcome Bruce Campbell as the town’s slimy mayor, and the easy-to-spot Mr. T as a policeman. In voicing Flint’s bait shop-owning father, James Caan is surprisingly touching, belying his character’s amusingly gruff appearance.

The film unfortunately turns a little too frantic by the time the main characters take off to take down Flint’s food machine, which has morphed into a (rather disgusting) monstrosity reminiscent of V’Ger in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Also, Hader himself seems to be afflicted with ADD, and is given the annoying trait of dramatically saying what he’s doing.

As CGI ‘toons go, it’s better than Monsters vs. Aliens, I guess, but falls short of Meet the Robinsons, which also deals with kids and inventions but has more depth and is better at being peculiar. And yet nowhere else can you watch Mount Rushmore get smacked in the face(s) with a giant pie. – [DVD]

Animation/Family

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 1/5/10

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