It's Raining Ham

Looks like I saved the best movie for last. I went to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs last Sunday, the day after going to see Jennifer's Body, which I saw the day after seeing The Informant! Fortunately, each movie turned out to be better than the previous one.

CWACOM is, like the title would lead you to believe, a delirious adventure packed with impossible events, surreal turns, and all the whimsy and mad creativity you could imagine. At the same time, the script also includes all the inescapable beats, such as a hard-to-please dad, an oddball main character (Flint, voiced by Bill Hader), an unexpected (by him) romantic interest (Sam, voiced by Anna Faris), and my all-time favorite: the determination to chase your dreams. I don't know how much of this is featured in the children's book the film is based on, but seeing the book is 32 pages long, I have a feeling a lot of it came from the screenwriters' imagination.

The movie is laugh-out-loud funny but it also packs lots of dry humor and hilarious comments the different characters just deadpan. ("Lets rock this car back and forth," states a member of an angry mob before proceeding to, well, rock said car back and forth like any self-respecting mob tends to do.) And said characters are voiced by a veritable army of unexpectedly familiar faces: Benjamin Bratt, James Caan, Andy Samberg, Lauren Graham, and Neil Patrick Harris, in addition to the aforementioned Bill Hader and Anna Faris. Plus the two actors that caught me completely unaware: Bruce Campbell, and the one and only Mr. T!

The character design was cool, with big heads and spaghetti-thin bodies and limbs, the animation was great, and the attention to detail was out of this world. The universe of CWACOM is vividly colorful and delightfully rendered, and those ice-cream-covered houses looked really yummy.

All in all, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a pleasant surprise, and if you want to spend a good time at the movies, do not hesitate and check it out.