Cloudy With a Chance of Genius

“Have you ever felt like you were a little bit different? Like you had something unique to offer the world, if you could just get people to see it. Then you know exactly how it felt to be me.”

                                                                                                -Flint Lockwood (2009)

Flint Lockwood, the main character in Sony Pictures’ Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, written and directed by Phi Lord and Chris Miller in 2009 and loosely based on the book, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, written by Judi Barrett in 1978, is a characterized personification of the movie itself.  Like most animations today, it is a comedy, but its heart is what most effectively delivers its message. In this opening line of the movie, Flint is able to sum up both his life as an unsuccessful inventor on the tiny dreary island of Swallow Falls and the revolution that inspired so much of Sony Pictures’ success in the future. Refusing to follow the stereotypical rules of popular animation while simultaneously overtly acknowledging its tropes, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is “a little bit different,” like it has “something unique to offer the world.”

With posters on his wall of Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein painted to be a rock stars and his most prized possession being a white lab coat from his understanding yet recently deceased mother, it’s no wonder Flint Lockwood aspires to be a successful inventor. Unfortunately, with his most successful inventions being a communicator with a monkey who can only say his own name and a pair of spray on shoes that are impossible to take off (yes, he wears them the entire film), Flint finds himself well into adulthood and the fact that he still lives at home indicates that he has no major accomplishments. His lack of money, the surplus of fish the island has failed to export, and his overall desire to earn his father’s love has landed him a job working at the sardine store. There, he works for his dad to kill time until he can go home and work in his home made laboratory.

What creates the plot/conflict of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is in the ensuing scene, when Flint accidentally overpowers the FLDSMDFR and it goes haywire, runs rampant through the city, and ultimately flies into the sky, taking residence among the clouds. From there, he is able to remotely control the device causing it to rain (and snow and hail) in the form of all types of food, gaining him and his town international popularity. For a while, he revels in it, even getting the attention of those who previously neglected his existence and a pretty young reporter following his story. Chaos is the result however, when the machine gets a mind of its own and the town and its corrupt mayor are forced to deal with its dangers while Flint tries to solve this unique problem.

The film in itself is refreshingly different from the cookie cutter princess story that Disney has kindly provided for us all these years. The animation style, a form of 3d not unlike Pixar and Dreamworks, has its own identity, exaggerating certain characteristics and quirks in different ways. For example, it takes the freedom of adhering to its own laws of physics and runs with it without pushing the story outside the walls of our imagination into a realm that would leave us disinterested. There is a scene in the movie, for instance, when Flint and his love interest Sam are at a palace made entirely of gelatin. The animators take certain creative liberties having the Flint and Sam jump around the mansion and bounce around as if the place were made of rubber until they jump into a pool made of the exact same consistency of gelatin and they sink. Obviously, in real life this would be impossible and in any world outside of this one, it would make no sense, but because the animators follow their own laws and use their freedom intelligently, it makes for a fun and playful scene.

What sets this movie apart from others is its witty and self-aware, yet sincere, story line. It rattles off punches with a quick pace that keeps the viewer constantly entertained and develops characters that are extreme versions of the archetypes they embody. The dad is so stern, his eyebrows literally droop over his eyes and they can’t be seen until he is very surprised. The hard-nosed cop, played by Mr. T, yells at the top of his lungs no matter what his emotion is and his muscles are overwhelmingly visible through his extraordinarily tight cop uniform. The overarching story of acceptance and the idea that anyone can be a hero fits perfectly within the world the animators created. The comedy is used not as a crutch but simply as a side effect of the plot driving itself forward with the characters responding humorously to the plights they’ve found themselves in.

What impressed me most about this movie was the legacy it has created. Released only five years ago, it has propelled the career of the writer/directors Lord and Miller. Post Meatballs, they have – hand in hand with Sony – gone on to write and direct a Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs sequel, LEGO Movie, 21 Jump Street, and 22 Jump Street, all of which were enormously successful. It is this new style of humor that is able to poke fun at animation and traditional story telling that has transcended the art of animation and into live action movies (21 and 22 Jump Street are both live action movies that follow the same form of story telling). Simply, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is just the movie the world needs right now; a little bit different with something unique to offer the world.